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MIT's OpenCourseWare Announces Landmark Agreement with Elsevier
In a move it says will aid its commitment to open education, MIT's OpenCourseWare (OCW) has reached a landmark agreement with publisher Elsevier that will allow MIT faculty to include Elsevier content within MIT's open access OCW database-to be freely downloaded, used, and shared under a Creative Commons license. Under the terms of the agreement, MIT can include up to three figures, including tables and illustrations, per individual article-up to ten per journal volume-and up to 100 words from a single text extract, or 300 words from a series of extracts.
Steve E. Carson, external-relations director for the project, told the Chronicle of Higher Education the agreement was a "cost-saver" for MIT that would both increase the richness of OCW offerings and reduce the burden on MIT professors and staff. Carson told reporters that putting 400 courses online annually involved "tracking down permissions for about 6,000 copyrighted items."
Elsevier is the first major publisher to agree to such a license with MIT, though MIT officials hope others will follow. "We have a limited agreement with MIT Press as well," Carson told the LJ Academic Newswire, "and have had discussions with others, but nothing is imminent at this time."
Carson said the agreement does not restrict or otherwise affect the application of fair use when appropriate. He noted that that OCW is a web publication that makes "course materials openly available on the web" under a license that allows for redistribution, reuse, and modification. "Were we to use a fair use approach in publishing Elsevier content," he explained, "it would have to go up under an 'All Rights Reserved' status, which would complicate reuse of the materials by our site visitors. What this does for use is streamline the acquisition of permission to publish under the open license." Carson added that the agreement "has no relationship to faculty use of materials in classroom and thus has absolutely no connection to the face-to-face teaching exemption (section 110) or the fair use exemption (section 107) of the copyright law governing the use of materials in teaching."
MIT chartered OCW in 2000 in an ambitious plan to offer free publication of course materials used at MIT. Users can get lecture notes and problem sets, and they can even watch lecture videos and demonstrations on a wide variety of subjects. Last year, OCW web traffic set monthly records, logging over two million visits.
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GAO Slams EPA Library Closures as Unjustified
A new report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) slams the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) plan to close regional and research libraries around the country, calling the decision not justified and the process deeply flawed. "GAO's report paints a grim picture of the current state of EPA's library system," said Rep. Bart Gordon (D-TN). "The Agency's modernization effort is characterized by poor planning, failure to communicate with its employees, the public or Congress and failure to protect unique government assets."
Henry A. Waxman (D-CA), chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said that GAO's report "makes it clear that EPA rushed to close libraries with little notice or input and disregarded concerns raised by EPA employees and in an EPA report."
Two years ago, the agency, anticipating a $2 million budget cut and noting a move to online resources, began the process of closing four regional libraries, as well as reducing hours or service at five of 26 libraries, all used by agency staffers, state agencies, and members of the public. Also, EPA closed its Chemical Library in Washington, DC. Noting that the budget cut was proposed but not yet implemented, GAO said EPA acted without "determining whether potential cost savings were available" and without "performing the steps that its own study specified as necessary to ensure that the reorganization would be cost-effective."
The report also claims the agency did not comply with federal law concerning the disposal of federal property, nor did it communicate its strategy across the agency. GAO found that the agency was only planning to make about ten percent of its library holdings available online and was stymied by copyright in digitizing its holdings, limited to unique reports produced by EPA
GAO recommended that the Administrator of EPA maintain a moratorium on changes to the library network until the agency incorporates and makes public a plan that includes a strategy to justify its reorganization plans; new outreach efforts; appropriate monitoring of changes; and a process to ensure proper dispersal and disposal of library materials. GAO said that EPA, provided with a draft of the report for review and comment, "agreed with our recommendations."
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ALA's Rettig: EPA Library Closures Have Ignored the End User
In testimony today before the U.S. House Committee on Science and Technology Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight, Jim Rettig, president-elect, American Library Association (ALA) and University Librarian, University of Richmond, piled on the criticism of the closures of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) libraries and suggested the agency do much better to understand and respond to the end users' needs.
Rettig stressed two issues: first, the importance of access to scientific, environmental, legal, and other government information for EPA employees, scientists, and the American public; second, the need for information specialists-staff librarians-to ensure the most effective access to this information.
"As one recently retired EPA librarian described it, the EPA libraries have been functioning like a virtual National Library on the Environment," he said. "Now that some of these regional libraries and the pesticide library are closed, key links have been removed from the chain, thus weakening the whole system." He described a plan in which materials from closed EPA libraries "have been boxed and sent to other locations where they are slowly being re-cataloged and then sent back to the Headquarters Library here in Washington, DC-a library that is now closed and that has no room to house these resources." Some materials are being slowly digitized at two other locations.
"Unfortunately, there continues to be a lot that we don't know: exactly what materials have been being shipped around the country, whether there are duplicate materials in other EPA libraries, whether these items have been or will be digitized, and whether a record is being kept of what is being dispersed and what is being discarded. We remain concerned that years of research and studies about the environment may be lost forever," he said. "Without more detailed information about the EPA's digitization project, we cannot assess whether it is digitizing the most appropriate materials." He also warned that EPA may be following ALA guidelines in weeding its collection, but those "standards were never intended for application in a digital environment."
While the move to digitization can be costly and complicated, he said, "the bottom line is that libraries still need skilled professionals to a) assist users, b) organize Internet access, c) determine the best way to make the information available to those users, and d) assure that digitization projects adhere to standards." Also, he noted, "Librarians are also needed to design the interfaces," suggesting there should be customized interfaces for scientists, teachers and students, and for the general public.
Rettig asked that the committee on behalf of ALA request EPA discuss with stakeholders how best to meet user needs and plan for the future; respond to those users' needs; stabilize and inventory the collections now in storage; develop and implement a government-wide process to assist agencies to design effective digitization programs; and ensure that federal government librarians manage federal government libraries.
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Book News: Penn State Libraries Get Hemingway Letters Archive
Penn State University Libraries announced last week that it has acquired a large archive of correspondence between Nobel laureate Ernest Hemingway and his family. The archive of letters, telegrams, and notes spanning the years 1917 to 1957, were compiled by the author's younger sister Madelaine "Sunny" Hemingway Mainland and given to her son, also named Ernest. William L. Joyce, head of Penn State's Special Collections Library, said the letters reveal a Hemingway the public rarely saw-a devoted and dutiful son and an affectionate and attentive brother," Joyce said. "The letters deepen our understanding and humanize this great American writer and display aspects of his personality previously underappreciated."
Penn State said the correspondence were posted from northern Michigan, Kansas City, Milan, Toronto, Paris, Pamplona, the village of Schruns in the Austrian Tyrol, Valencia, Montana, Key West, Bimini, Cuba, and Nairobi. The University Libraries also supports a massive international Hemingway Letters Project directed by Penn English professor Sandra Spanier, who has been gathering and preparing more than 6000 of the author's letters for inclusion in a 12-volume scholarly edition to be published by Cambridge University Press. Volume I is scheduled to appear in 2009. The Hemingway Letters Project will eventually include the recent Penn State acquisition. The collection will be likely open to scholars and the public later this year.
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LJ Call for Reviewers
Library Journal is seeking book reviewers in the following categories: biography, business/economics, communications, history (Ancient through 20th century, U.S. and non-U.S.), law/crime, political science/current events (domestic and international), and social science.
You: a librarian or academic with subject knowledge, able to read and assess books in your area with efficiency. Your reviews appear under your byline. Please send resume, subject interests, and a short writing sample to Margaret Heilbrun.
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Best Sellers in Botany/Zooology (13 digit ISBNs in brackets), August 2007-present, as compiled by YBP Library Services
- Nature's Palette: The Science of Plant Color
Lee, David
University of Chicago Press
2007. ISBN 0226470520 [9780226470528]. $35.00
- Built By Animals: The Natural History of Animal Architecture
Hansell, Michael H.
Oxford University Press
2007. ISBN 0199205566 [9780199205561]. $29.95
- Gorilla Society: Conflict, Compromise, and Cooperation Between the Sexes
Harcourt, A. H.
University of Chicago Press
2007. ISBN 0226316025 [9780226316024]. $75.00
- Ecology & Behavior of Amphibians
Wells, Kentwood David
University of Chicago Press
2007. ISBN 0226893340 [9780226893341]. $75.00
- Beans: A History
Albala, Ken
Berg
2007. ISBN 1845204301 [9781845204303]. $24.95
- Foraging: Behavior and Ecology
Stephens. David W.
University of Chicago Press
2007. ISBN 0226772632 [9780226772639]. $99.00
- Macachiavellian Intelligence: How Rhesus Macaques and Humans Have Conquered the World
Maestripieri, Dario
University of Chicago Press
2007. ISBN 0226501175 [9780226501178]. $25.00
- In Defense of Dolphins: The New Moral Frontier
White, Thomas I.
Blackwell
2007. ISBN 140515778x [9781405157780]. $54.95
- Simian Tongue: The Long Debate About Animal Language
Radick, Gregory
University of Chicago Press
2007. ISBN 0226702243 [9780226702247]. $45.00
- Bears: A Brief History
Trans. by Lori Lantz
Brunner, Bernd
Yale University Press
2007. ISBN 0300122993 [9780300122992]. $25.00
- Of a Feather: A Brief History of American Birding
Weidensaul, Scott
Harcourt Trade
2007. ISBN 0151012474 [9780151012473]. $25.00
- When Species Meet
Caraway, Donna Jeanne
University of Minnesota Press
2008. ISBN 0816650454 [9780816650453]. $75.00
- Evolutionary Ecology of Social and Sexual Systems: Crustaceans as Model Organisms
Duffy. J. Emmett
Oxford University Press
2007. ISBN 0195179927 [9780195179927]. $59.50
- New Encyclopedia of Snakes
Mattison, Chris
Princeton University Press
2007. ISBN 069113295x [9780691132952]. $35.00
- Owls of the United States and Canada: A Complete Guide to Their Biology and Behavior
Lynch, Wayne
Johns Hopkins University
2007. ISBN 0801886872 [9780801886874]. $39.95
- Ants of North America: A Guide to the Genera
Fisher, Brian L.
University of California Press
2007. ISBN 0520254228 [9780520254220]. $34.95
- Chemistry in the Garden
Hanson, James Ralph
Royal Society of Chemistry
2007. ISBN 0854048979 [9780854048977]. $29.95
- Specialization, Speciation, and Radiation: The Evolutionary Biology of Herbivorous Insects
Tilmon, Kelly Jean
University of California Press
2008. ISBN 0520251326 [9780520251328]. $65.00
- Specialization, Speciation, and Radiation: The Evolutionary Biology of Herbivorous Insects
Tilmon, Kelly Jean
University of California Press
2008. ISBN 0520251326 [9780520251328]. $65.00
- Fragile Balance: The Extraordinary Story of Australian Marsupials
Dickman, C. R.
University of Chicago Press
2007. ISBN 0226146308 [9780226146300]. $65.00
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