Google Books Now in Melvyl Test Version

The CDL (California Digital Library) is excited to announce that records for Google mass digitized books are now visible in a test copy of the Melvyl Catalog:
http://melvyl-test.cdlib.org:8164/F 

This was accomplished by means of Google Book Search API (application programming interface), a "hook" which extends the ability for UC students, faculty and staff to find the mass digitized content in a search tool they are very familiar with - the Melvyl Catalog.  With this API, the UC community will be able to find not only what UC has digitized, but they will also have access to content digitized by any other Google partner.

Please see the attached press release and UC Talking Points for further information about this project, as well as the Google Book Search Blog:
http://booksearch.blogspot.com/2008/03/preview-books-anywhere-with-new-google.html

The best solutions to 10 of the world's biggest challenges, Copenhagen, May, 2008

Copenhagen Consensus 2008

The best solutions to 10 of the world's biggest challenges, Copenhagen, May, 2008

More than 55 international economists, including 4 Nobel Laureates, will assess more than 50 solutions and assemble a list of priorities for everyone involved in solving the world's biggest challenges.

The aim of CC08 is to take stock of the world's biggest problems and the most promising solutions and provide informed input into the policy making process surrounding efforts to deal with these problems. CC08 will revisit issues from CC04, as well as take up new issues in the light of improved knowledge of the state of the world since 2004. CC08 will provide an in-depth assessment of the costs and benefits of solutions to some of the biggest challenges the world is facing today.

Copenhagen Consensus Center

The Ten Challenges

ARL White Paper on NIH Open Access mandate

With NIH Compliance Date Approaching, SPARC, ARL Issue White Paper

On April 7, 2008, researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) will be required to deposit their articles in the PubMed Central online archive, to be made publicly available no later than 12 months after publication in a journal. To encourage and ensure compliance, SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition), the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), and Science Commons have released Complying with the National Institutes of Health Public Access Policy: Copyright Considerations and Options http://www.arl.org/sparc/advocacy/nih/copyright.html. The free paper is designed to help "provosts, research administrators, and campus counsel understand their institution's copyright-related obligations and options under the new Congressionally mandated policy."

The analysis was prepared by Michael Carroll, attorney, copyright expert, and faculty member at Villanova University law school. Carroll has long been involved with copyright issues as a member of the Creative Commons board and an advisor to Science Commons. In 2004 he worked with SPARC to develop the SPARC Author Addendum http://www.arl.org/sparc/author/ designed to help authors properly reserve rights to deposit their works in open online archives. Heather Joseph, executive director of SPARC, said the paper is a "great tool to help administrators jumpstart the local planning process."

IU libraries publish faculty e-journal

Indiana University Library Publishes First Faculty E-Journal

http://www.libraryjournal.com/info/CA6534369.html?nid=2673#news2

In what librarians are calling "a turning point in scholarly publishing" the Indiana University (IU) library this week published the university’s first "faculty-generated" open access electronic journal, the Museum Anthropology Review. The journal, edited by Jason Baird Jackson, associate professor in IU’s Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology, was chartered last February as part of a pilot project within the library’s larger scholarly communication initiative, IUScholarWorks, designed to offer faculty "a low-cost solution to the administrative and publishing functions."

In an editorial on the journal’s web site, Jackson detailed—and praised—the library’s contributions. "Almost as soon as we began publishing last February, we started partnering with remarkable, visionary librarians," Jackson wrote...

Karla Malenfant (American Library Association)

An Upstart Web Catalog Challenges an Academic-Library Giant

An Upstart Web Catalog Challenges an Academic-Library Giant
By ANDREA L. FOSTER

http://chronicle.com
Section: Information Technology
Volume 54, Issue 24, Page A11
From the issue dated February 22, 2008

"At only 21, Aaron Swartz is attempting to turn the library world upside down. He is taking on the subscription-based WorldCat, the largest bibliographic database on the planet, by building a free online book catalog that anyone can update.

Many academic librarians are wary of Mr. Swartz's project because it will allow nonlibrarians, who may be prone to errors, to catalog books"

Laurence Lessig's campaign to "Change Congress"

This site hosts this video to explain the launch of two exploratory projects — first, a Change Congress movement, and his own decision whether to run for Congress in the California 12th.
http://lessig08.org/

Librarianship in 1940s

The information-literacy.net has a 10-minutes video from 1947 (http://www.information-literacy.net/2008/02/librarian-1947.html). But I think
it is more about librarianship advocacy than about information literacy. Besides, some things have changed since then (e.g., the card catalog) because of the technology advances, although basic principles remain the same.

Enjoy watching :-)

Ying Zhang

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Ying Zhang, Ph.D.
Research Librarian for Asian Studies
University of California Irvine Libraries
P.O. Box 19557, Irvine, CA 92623-9557
Phone: 949.824.0489
fax: 949.824.0605
Email: yingz@uci.edu
Offices: Langson Library Room 466, 109
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