|
 | For OCA's New Partners, Scan Plan Is a Commitment of Dollars and "Sense"
Brewster Kahle can be an effective speaker, no question about it—so effective, in fact, that when he pitched the Open Content Alliance (OCA) at the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) meeting in 2005, shortly after its inception, librarians in the Boston Library Consortium (BLC) were hooked. "Barbara Preece (BLC), Maura Marx (Boston Public Library), and I saw Brewster's presentation at CNI," Brinley Franklin, vice provost for university libraries at the University of Connecticut (UConn), told the LJ Academic Newswire. "We were immediately interested in the concept."
That concept is now being put into practice as part of a sweeping plan unveiled last week by the BLC to scan millions of pages of public domain materials in its collections in conjunction with the OCA. "In total, I believe the BLC has pledged almost $500,000 a year for two years," Franklin said, augmented by financial support offered by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, which has granted BLC funding to host "a summit on open access." Doron Weber, program officer at the Sloan Foundation, has also vowed "continued support in light of our recent commitment to the OCA," Franklin added.
UConn, where library budgets have remained flat in recent years, has pledged both staff and capital. The library will invest $50,000 a year for two years toward the scanning. "This is slightly less than one percent of our collections budget, which will be our funding source," Franklin said. In addition, this fall UConn will hire a full-time "digital projects librarian" as well as reallocate several existing staff, mostly from collections services, to support digitization efforts. Franklin said David Lowe, UConn's digital preservation librarian, will serve on the BLC/OCA Implementation Team, and will lead the project at UConn.
"We will ship materials to the Scanning Center at the BPL, which will ship them back after scanning them" Franklin explained, adding that UConn library staff designed "a local workflow" last year that they will now employ and fine-tune. UConn's initial area of focus for scanning, for at least a year, will draw from the library's circulating collections and will involve "the written history of New England, with a special emphasis on Connecticut history." Librarians also hope to mount a number of digital images from UConn's map and geographic information center as well as images and written materials from its special collections, housed in the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, collections that also "depict Connecticut history and other rare or unique collections."
UConn joins 18 other institutions in the BLC, as pioneers of sorts. It is the first large consortium to embark on a self-funded project with the Open Content Alliance. In all, members plan to scan at least ten million pages over two years, one million pages of which are set to come from UConn, as well as major collections such as the Boston Public Library's John Adams collection; documents from the Biodiversity Heritage Library, which includes collections from Harvard; the Marine Biological Laboratory; and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
Most importantly, all of the scans, Franklin stressed, will be open, accessible from any browser, downloadable, and usable, unlike competing commercial plans, which place proprietary restrictions on their scans. Franklin said UConn is committed not only financially but in principle to the OCA's efforts to keep the public domain restriction-free, a policy that seeks to ensure a vibrant role for libraries. "The library staff at UConn was unanimous in its endorsement of unrestricted access to materials we digitize," Franklin says. "We are ready to turn down funding from companies that restrict searching digital collections through their proprietary search engine."
|
|
Hebrew Union College Kicks Off $11.5 Million Renovation of Klau Library
The Cincinnati-based Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR), one of the most comprehensive Jewish libraries in the world, last week broke ground on a comprehensive, $11.5 million renovation of the Klau Library. The project, university officials say, will transform the library into "an unparalleled, international center for research, teaching, and learning for scholars worldwide." With more than 465,000 volumes, the Klau Library owns the largest collection of printed Judaica in North America, and is second only in size to that of the Jewish National and University Library in Jerusalem.
Laurel Wolfson, administrative librarian at HUC, said the expanded building is designed to house and preserve the collection far into the future, as well as provide "flexibility for future needs." Specifically, the project will add space, alleviating crowding in the stacks, as well as upgrade the library's technology. Renovations will also yield a new entryway and pavilion, as well as more climate controlled space for the library's rare archives. Architects for the project are 2enCompass, with consultants Shepley, Bulfinch, Richardson & Abbot. The project is funded by 50 private donors, led by a $6.5 million donation from the Jewish Foundation of Cincinnati.
The Klau Library serves as the main campus research library in HUC-JIR's four-campus library system, (it has outposts in Jerusalem, Los Angeles, and New York) as well as for the University of Cincinnati and other local institutions through membership in the Greater Cincinnati Library Consortium, the Ohio College Library Consortium, and the Research Libraries Group. It is one of the three conservators in the world of the negatives of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and its Rare Book collection includes "incunabula" (books printed before 1501) and 16th-century Hebrew imprints, including a unique Chinese-Hebrew collection and the world's largest collection of early Jewish Americana.
|
| Alumna Leaves $1.875 Million to Emporia State U. SLIM
Martha Kruse Furber has left her alma mater, Emporia State University (ESU), KS, an extraordinary and unexpected gift. Her $1.875 million bequest for School of Library and Information Management (SLIM), is the largest-ever single gift to the school. SLIM officials say the funds will be used to provide scholarships, which will more than double the school's existing scholarship income. Furber graduated in 1938 from the Kansas State Teachers College of Emporia, ESU's predecessor, with a one-year library degree. She worked throughout her career as a public librarian, living frugally, eventually ending her career at the Orange County Public Library, Santa Ana, CA. She died in May 2006 at the age of 92.
"We'll have a pretty good time with it," said a grateful SLIM dean Gwen Alexander, adding that the funds would aid ESU in its current efforts to focus more on service learning initiatives. An example, Alexander said, is SLIM's involvement with the Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado, where SLIM has an outpost. SLIM donates its expertise in preserving the park's archival materials while students get hands-on experience. ESU's new president, Michael Lane, Alexander added, is also stressing global education, and SLIM is planning educational outreach programs in Mexico and possibly Nigeria. The forthcoming scholarships will enable more students to be involved in such programs.
|
| Middlebury College Acquires Archive of Hemingway Rarities
Middlebury College, VT, has acquired an archive of Ernest Hemingway letters, photos, and typescripts from the Nobel laureate's nieces. Anne and Hilary Hemingway, daughters of the writer's younger brother, Leicester, provided the collection to the school partially through sale and partially through donation. Hilary's husband graduated from Middlebury in 1975. Middlebury College Special Collections and Archives Curator Andrew Wentink called the acquisition "perhaps the single most important acquisition" since the college purchased Henry David Thoreau's personal copy of the first edition of On Walden Pond in 1940.
According to Wentink, one important aspect of this collection is the span of time—more than a century—that the materials cover. While a number of the original pieces are available in other collections around the country, the archive also provides "a broad familial context for the writer's personal life and published works in a single location." The archive focuses on Hemingway's early life in Oak Park, IL, and the areas of Michigan where the Hemingway family spent summers, both the setting of many of the author's early short stories.
The school said it will be roughly a year before the materials are fully cataloged and made available to students and scholars for study. Additionally, a signed proof of Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls will be auctioned November 29. The proof, which is expected to fetch $125,000, includes the author's handwritten corrections, the dedication to soon-to-be wife Martha Gellhorn, and an inscription to friend Toby Otto Bruce. Other items of special interest include several diaries dating from the 1850s and Civil War letters belonging to the author's grandfather, Anson Hemingway. A literary highlight of the collection is a carbon copy of a unique version of the first chapter of The Sun Also Rises. The chapter was eventually deleted by Hemingway at the suggestion of his friend F. Scott Fitzgerald.
|
Best Sellers in Mathematics, February 2007–present, as compiled by YBP Library Services
(13 digit ISBNs in brackets)
-
Pythagorean Theorem: A 4,000-Year History
Maor, Eli
Princeton University Press
2007. ISBN 0691125260 [9780691125268]. $24.95
-
Out of the Labyrinth: Setting Mathematics Free
Kaplan, Robert
Oxford University Press
2007. ISBN 0195147448 [9780195147445]. $25.00
-
Nonplussed! Mathematical Proof of Implausible Ideas
Havil, Julian
Princeton University Press
2007. ISBN 0691120560 [9780691120560]. $24.95
-
Chases and Escapes: The Mathematics of Pursuit and Evasion
Nahin, Paul J.
Princeton University Press
2007. ISBN 0691125147 [9780691125145]. $24.95
-
Mathematician's Brain
Ruelle, David
Princeton University Press
2007. ISBN 0691129827 [9780691129822]. $22.95
-
The Poincare Conjecture: In Search of the Shape of the Universe
O'Shea, Donal
Walker & Company
2007. ISBN 080271532x [9780802715326]. $26.95
-
Mathematics of Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, India, and Islam: A Sourcebook
Katz, Victor
Princeton University Press
2007. ISBN 0691114854 [9780691114859]. $75.00
-
Data Analysis and Graphics Using R: An Example-Based Approach
Maindonald, J. H.
Cambridge University Press
2007. ISBN 0521861160 [9780521861168]. $80.00
-
Certain Ambiguity: A Mathematical Novel
Gaurav, Suri
Princeton University Press
2007. ISBN 0691127093 [9780691127095]. $27.95
-
Geometric Folding Algorithms: Linkages, Origami, Polyhedra
Demaine, Erik D.
Cambridge University Press
2007. ISBN 0521857570 [9780521857574]. $95.00
-
Handbook of Parametric and Nonparametric Statistical Procedures
Sheskin, David
Chapman & Hall CRC
2007. ISBN 1584888148 [9781584888147]. $139.95
-
Introduction to Computational Fluid Dynamics: The Finite Volume Method
Versteeg, H. K.
Prentice Hall
2007. ISBN 0131274988 [9780131274983]. $93.33
-
Positive Definite Matrices
Bhatia, Rajendra
Princeton University Press
2007. ISBN 0691129185 [9780691129181]. $55.00
-
Heavy-Tail Phenomena: Probabilistic and Statistical Modeling
Resnick, Sidney I.
Springer
2007. ISBN 0387242724 [9780387242729]. $59.95
-
Differential Equations: A Modeling Approach
Brown, Courtney
Sage Publications
2007. ISBN 1412941083 [9781412941082]. $16.95
-
Nature of Statistical Evidence
Thompson, Bill
Springer
2007. ISBN 0387400508 [9780387400501]. $49.95
-
History of Parametric Statistical Inference from Bernoulli to Fisher, 1713-1935
Hald, Anders
Springer
2007. ISBN 0387464085 [9780387464084]. $69.95
-
Measure of All Things: The Story of Man and Measurement
Whitelaw, Ian
St Martin's Press
2007. ISBN 0312370261 [9780312370268]. $17.95
-
Bayesian Statistical Modelling
Congdon, Peter
John Wiley
2006. ISBN 0470018755 [9780470018750]. $110.00
-
Geometry of an Art: The History of the Mathematical Theory of Perspective from Alberti to Monge
Andersen, Kirsti
Springer
2007. ISBN 0387259619 [9780387259611]. $199.00
Library Journal Academic Newswire
Contributing Editor: Andrew R. Albanese
Phone: 646-746-6852 E-mail: aalbanese@reedbusiness.com
Editor: Francine Fialkoff
Phone: 646-746-6807 E-mail: fialkoff@reedbusiness.com
News Editor: Norman Oder
Phone: 646-746-6829 E-mail: noder@reedbusiness.com
TO UNSUBSCRIBE
To unsubscribe send an e-mail to Unsub_Academic_Newswire@email.libraryjournal.com
TO SUBSCRIBE
Subscribe to Academic Newswire or our other newsletters
Subscribe to Library Journal magazine
ARCHIVE
Read past issues
PRINT
You must change your print settings from portrait to landscape to print this page.
VIEW OUR PRIVACY POLICY
Click here
ADVERTISING
Library Journal
1-888-7RBI WEB
Onlineads@reedbusiness.com
Advertising Information
QUESTIONS?
If you have any questions or need further assistance, please contact our
Online Support Team
Reed Business Information
2000 Clearwater Drive, Oak Brook, IL 60523
MediaSupport@reedbusiness.com?Subject=LJ-"AN"
© 2007 Library Journal. All rights reserved.
"Library Journal" is a registered trademark. "Library Journal Academic Newswire" is a trademark.
|
