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The LJ Academic Newswire Newsmaker Interview, Part II: Harvard University Librarian Robert Darnton
In Tuesday's issue of the LJ Academic Newswire, Harvard University Librarian Robert Darnton spoke of Harvard's commitment to effecting positive change in scholarly communication. In Part II of the LJ Academic Newswire Newsmaker Interview, Darnton delved further into the Harvard OA mandate as it relates to the Harvard University Press, books, and the careful move toward a university-as-publisher model.
LJAN: Some publishers, especially small publishers and scientific societies, argue that open access (OA) will harm their journals. Do you buy that argument?
RD: No. I really don't. There are many, many kinds of journals, and I imagine a near future where there will be coexistence between journals and open access repositories. You take a subject like physics, there are a number of extremely wonderful, successful, expensive journals, and not one is opposed to open access repositories. They don't feel threatened that repositories are going to replace them. They aren't, because these journals package information in a convenient and useful way.
Over the last 20 years, more journals have been founded in more and more specialized fields. I think the function of the specialized, small journal is a valid and a valuable one. The vast majority of college professors benefit from these journals bringing together work from all over the world. Often they have a quasi-newsletter component to them, workshops, colloquia, conferences, etc. I think subscribers understand that and will continue to subscribe for that reason. Put another way, an article from a Harvard professor that will appear every three to five years, will not provoke subscribers to quit a journal and get the article free from the repository.
The Harvard OA motion pertains specifically to articles, but has there been any thought about books?
Yes, lots of thoughts. But we're being very careful moving forward. One thing that I think is crucial for us is to figure out a way to collaborate with the Harvard University Press. The press obviously is a key player in all of this. It's a great press with all kinds of capabilities that could be harnessed for this cause. I sit on the board of the press in my role at the library, but I have been involved with university presses all my life, and they add tremendous value.
One of the things we say in the area I work in, which we call the history of books, is that 'authors don't write books, they write texts.' Publishers and printers make books, and there is a tremendous difference between texts and finished books as anyone who has been though the process can appreciate. The value of the editors, designers, marketers, and experts in general at Harvard University Press is an asset that matters tremendously. I would think that if Harvard University Press goes in the direction of electronic publishing, the library would work with it and you can imagine all kinds of things happening. But we want to be very careful. We're not trying to cut anyone out or monopolize anything. We want to provide leadership in developing high quality scholarly communication, but if that is to happen we will need university presses.
Given the market in recent years, working with libraries on OA endeavors couldn't be a much worse scenario for university presses, could it?
That's right. Most university presses are going through a very, very rough patch. It seems to me that the future for university presses lies in electronic communication. Ebooks seemed kind of dubious and gimmicky to the older generation, but they already are pretty normal to the current generation. I don't say the battle is won, but the impetus is so strong in this direction that I think it's clear the vast amount of scholarly work will be transmitted through the web. In fact, I think there will be hybrid versions. I myself am working on a book that will be published by Oxford University Press with an electronic accompaniment that will do all kinds of things that wouldn't be possible in the print version. Many people are already doing this. It is exhilarating as a researcher and writer to be able to get across the richness of a subject in ways not possible in print media alone.
How difficult is the digital preservation issue for the information you collect in the repository?
It is very complex. Everyone agrees that the digits themselves can be damaged, and even more dangerous, our ability to locate them out there in cyberspace can falter. Not to mention changes in technology, both hardware and software. Everything seems to militate against confidence that digital documents are here to stay. But because there is so much intense work on the problem, I think the problem will be solved. Part of the mission of this new repository is to conserve these texts. We're not going to let them spin off and be lost in cyberspace. Still, it is a worry. Yesterday, I was teaching a class that involved looking at a copy of a Gutenberg Bible, and the students couldn't get over the vividness of the ink and the magnificent condition of this book, the first important book printed in the West, the way it had preserved. It has lasted already for centuries and will last for many more. Sometimes you're tempted to say since Gutenberg it's all downhill!
Any thoughts on the reception the motion has received outside of Harvard?
I'm delighted. Of course, there are arguments against, and some are indignant at the whole idea. But anything as innovative as this is bound to get some backs up. That doesn't worry me. On the contrary, it is good that this has captured imaginations and caused debate. Maybe someone will come up with an improved model-it's not as if Harvard has the last word on any of this. I hope this will help transform the whole landscape of learning, making it more open, more accessible, and democratizing the process. I hope it snowballs and will improve things after what has been very, very tough era.
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Triangle Research Libraries Network Joins the Open Content Alliance
The Triangle Research Libraries Network (TRLN), a collaborative organization of the research libraries at Duke University, North Carolina Central University (NCCU), North Carolina State University (NCSU), and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), this week announced that it will join the Open Content Alliance (OCA). The project will begin with the University of North Carolina and North Carolina State University each hosting one Scribe scanning machine-provided by the Internet Archive (which administers the OCA)-to scan books. Librarians from each institution will select the content to be scanned, focusing on their own historic collection strengths.
Greg Raschke, associate director for collections and scholarly communication at NCSU, said the scanning effort will focus on each library's individual strengths, creating an especially valuable resource because as much as 70 percent of the titles held within TRLN libraries are unique to each institution. Under the plan, the libraries will begin converting selected public domain books into "high-resolution, downloadable, reusable digital files," available for free on the Internet Archive website, and available for indexing by any search engine. TRLN and its members also intend to work toward "the development of shared principles" for digitization and the long-term preservation of digitized content. Raschke said the OCA's openness was an attractive component to the program, but suggested TRLN libraries, like other libraries, might also be open to working with commercial scan plans like those of Google and Microsoft. "We're not ruling anything out," he said.
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ALA OITP Lands MacArthur Grant To Support Digital Copyright Initiatives
The American Library Association's Office for Information Technology Policy (OITP) announced this week that it has landed a major grant from the MacArthur Foundation to support its digital copyright programs, and to launch "initiatives to strengthen the public access to information, especially in libraries." The $385,000 grant will span 2008 and 2009. Alan Inouye, OITP director, said the grant will "help ensure that the public access and library community perspective is represented in policy debates that will shape the future digital world."
Andy Bridges, OITP communications director, told the LJ Academic Newswire that the grant will be used to charter new ventures and expand current initiatives, such the recently launched International Copyright Advocates program and the Copyright Advisory Network, a resource for librarians in need of copyright advice. "The proposal allows for considerable latitude within the general confines of copyright issues," Bridges noted. "Also, there is funding that is specifically allocated for new directions."
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Paying Off? RIAA Pre-Lawsuit Letters to Students Exceed 5000
No wonder the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is continuing its aggressive anti-piracy lawsuit campaign on college campuses-it appears to be, literally, paying off. In announcing its latest round of lawsuits last week-targeting 12 universities and over 400 individuals-RIAA officials said that of the 5003 "settlement" letters sent to students via college administrators in prior rounds, the RIAA has settled with nearly half-more than 2300 unlucky targets. At an average of over $3000 per settlement, per the RIAA's figures, (that's about 200 CDs at $15 apiece) suing kids for downloads seems like more of a growth industry that actually selling music. Formal lawsuits, meanwhile, have been filed against 2,465 receiving settlement offers. Those defying the RIAA face damages of up to $750 per infringement if they lose at trial.
Big losers in the RIAA's thirteenth wave include: Boston University (35 pre-litigation settlement letters), Columbia University (50), Drexel University (33), Indiana University (40), and the University of Southern California (50). Overall, the RIAA has now sent pre-lawsuit letters to more that than 150 schools targeting 5,404 individuals. Those letters are in addition to the 20,000-plus lawsuits the group has filed, settled or threatened against those using commercial Internet accounts.
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Best Sellers in Environmental Science, July 2007-present, as compiled by YBP Library Services
(13 digit ISBNs in brackets)
- World Without Us
Weisman, Alan
St. Martin's Press
2007. ISBN 0312347294 [9780312347291]. $24.95
- State of the Earth: Environmental Challenges on the Road to 2100
Conkin, Paul Keith
University Press of Kentucky
2007. ISBN 0813124115 [9780813124117]. $32.00
- Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility
Norhhaus, Ted
Houghton Mifflin
2007. ISBN 0618658254 [9780618658251]. $25.00
- Middle Path: Avoiding Environmental Catastrophe
Trans. by M.B. Debevoise
Lambin, Eric F.
University of Chicago Press
2007. ISBN 0226468534 [9780226468532]. $25.00
- Terra: Our 100-Million-Year-Old Ecosystem-and the Threats that Now Put It at Risk
Novacek, Michael J.
Farrar, Straus & Giroux
2007. ISBN 0374273251 [9780374273255]. $27.00
- Contract with the Earth
Gingrich, Newt
Johns Hopkins University
2007. ISBN 0801887801 [9780801887802]. $20.00
- No Way Home: The Decline of the World's Great Animal Migrations
Wilcove, David Samuel
Island Press
2008. ISBN 1559639857 [9781559639859]. $24.95
- American Environmental History: An Introduction
Merchant, Carolyn
Columbia University Press
2007. ISBN 0231140347 [9780231140348]. $74.50
- Resisting Global Toxics: Transnational Movements for Environmental Justice
Pellow, David Naguib
MIT Press
2007. ISBN 026216244x [9780262162449]. $62.00
- Counterculture Green: The Whole Earth Catalog and American Environmentalism
Kirk, Andrew G.
University Press of Kansas
2007. ISBN 0700615458 [9780700615452]. $34.95
- Seeking Sustainability in an Age of Complexity
Harris, Graham
Cambridge University Press
2007. ISBN 0521873495 [9780521873499]. $130.00
- Environmental History of Latin America
Miller, Shawn William
Cambridge University Press
2007. ISBN 0521848539 [9780521848534]. $65.00
- Solutions for the World's Biggest Problems: Costs and Benefits
Lomborg. Bjorn
Cambridge University Press
2007. ISBN 0521887720 [9780521887724]. $90.00
- Water Policy for Sustainable Development
Feldman, David Lewis
Johns Hopkins University
2007. ISBN 0801885884 [9780801885884]. $55.00
- Character and Environment: A Virtue-Oriented Approach to Environmental Ethics
Sandler, Ronald L.
Columbia University Press
2007. ISBN 0231141068 [9780231141062]. $45.00
- Dictionary of Environment and Conservation
Park, Chris C. Editor
Oxford University Press
2007. ISBN 0198609957 [9780198609957]. $40.00
- Defining Environmental Justice: Theories, Movements, and Nature
Schlosberg, David
Oxford University Press
2007. ISBN 0199286299 [9780199286294]. $74.00
- Greening Brazil: Environmental Activism in State and Society
Hochstetler, Kathryn
Duke University Press
2007. ISBN 0822340488 [9780822340485]. $84.95
- Automobile Politics: Ecology and Cultural Political Economy
Paterson, Matthew
Cambridge University Press
2007. ISBN 0521870801 [9780521870801]. $85.00
- Ignoring the Apocalypse: Why Planning To Prevent Environmental Catastrophe Goes Astray
Davis, David Howard
Praeger
2007. ISBN 0275996638 [9780275996635]. $49.95
Library Journal Academic Newswire
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