New & Noteworthy

Citation

(2010), "New & Noteworthy", Library Hi Tech News, Vol. 27 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/lhtn.2010.23927bab.001

New & Noteworthy

Article Type: New & Noteworthy From: Library Hi Tech News, Volume 27, Issue 2.

Blio Debuts: KNFB Unveils Game-Changing Ereader

Digital book technology took a leap forward at the Consumer Electronics Show in January 2010 when KNFB Reading Technology Inc. unveiled Blio, the free eReader that promises to transform the consumption of printed media while delivering access to the most comprehensive selection of eBook titles to date.

Blio is the first eReader to preserve the image-rich format of books and magazines, including their layout, typesetting, images, color and graphics, while also supporting full media functionality, including video, graphics and web links. The Blio software application will be available for desktop and tablet PCs, netbooks and mobile devices, including iPhones and iPods. Blio will be available for download at blioreader.com in late January 2010.

“Blio is without peer when it comes to the reader experience,” said knfb Founder and voice-recognition inventor Ray Kurzweil. “eBooks should be more than digital copies of a printed page. But the e-readers on the market today have been stuck in neutral and don't offer the reader or the publisher what they want or need. So we moved the experience from the boring 16 shades of gray text to an exciting level. And we do it without adding another costly piece of hardware to lug around.”

A read-aloud feature provides further distinction from other e-readers. A synthesized voice synchronizes with follow-along word highlighting, so the consumer can look and listen in tandem, an important consideration and attractive feature for travelers, language learners, young children and the vision impaired.

Through a partnership with Baker & Taylor, the world's largest distributor of physical and digital books, Blio offers a library of more than 1.2 million titles across genres. Blio's full color, graphical book display technology – a watershed in the eReader industry – allows for a comprehensive catalog of image-rich titles, unparalleled in today's market. Blio offers a large selection of books that otherwise don't translate well into eContent, including cookbooks, travel guides, how-to books, schoolbooks and children's stories. Blio's capabilities have captured the interest of hundreds of top publishers, who are partnering with Blio to dramatically grow the consumer's choice of titles.

Purchased books are stored in a personal virtual library, giving consumers limitless access to their downloaded content. This library seamlessly migrates from one device to another, allowing readers to begin a book on a home PC, and then pick up where they left off on a mobile device. Blio's active reading tools deepen comprehension, adding dimensionality to a user's reading. Highlighting, underlining and annotating help emphasize information and let the user review important points later. Blio's rich feature set allows the consumer to:

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  create a personalized list of reference websites, for one-touch look-up of highlighted phrases;

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  adjust reading speed, and font size;

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  translate to or from English in an embedded translation window;

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  insert and save text, drawing, voice, image or video notes directly into your content, and then export to create lists or study materials.

KNFB Reading Technology Inc. is a joint venture between Kurzweil Technologies, headed by CEO Ray Kurzweil, a 30-year innovator and pioneer in assistive technologies and the inventor of the first print-to-speech reading machine for the blind, and the National Federation of the Blind, the largest, most influential membership organization of blind people in the USA.

For more information: http://blioreader.com/

DMC Worldwide Unveils COPIA Platform, Introduces Suite of COPIA E-Readers

At the Consumer Electronics Show in January 2010, DMC Worldwide (DMCWW), a leading enterprise and consumer technology company today introduced COPIA, an open platform that combines content, social networking and e-commerce with an array of wireless e-readers to deliver an experience around shared discovery. The COPIA platform re-invents the way consumers experience content.

The COPIA platform is a hybrid solution for consumers of all ages to experience a completely new way to discover, enjoy, share and purchase books, newspapers, magazines and a wide variety of digital content. At the same time, it integrates a software application engine for OEM brands looking to deliver content across their digital devices including e-readers, notebooks, netbooks, tablets and smartphones.

“Today, eBook content is delivered across one of two typical business models: a vast online store or a social networking service,” said Anthony Antolino, SVP, DMCWW. “The COPIA platform is the first of its kind to combine content, collaboration, social networking and e-commerce together to connect people through a collaborative experience.”

TheCopia.com provides its community with a compelling set of intuitive features, including:

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  Social networking compatibility: Community profiles are linked to existing Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts enabling users to easily share content across social media platforms.

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  Collaboration tools: Students, as well as book groups, can highlight, annotate and share reading content with those who are important to them. In addition, users can access the most useful annotations from the entire community.

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  Multi-dimensional browsing experience: Real-world book browsing simulates how people typically view and select books in a store. Relevant eBook content can also be displayed in various ways for users to browse and find what's most relevant. Content can be browsed by community rating, tags from users or publishers, notations, popularity and price.

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  Intuitive search and display features: TheCopia.com makes it simple to find meaningful reading content by offering multiple paths to discovery. Users can easily filter search criteria to pinpoint what they're looking for. Search results are provided in dynamic content views, enabling users to toggle between list views to expanded views, to easily compare across lots of content.

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  Personalized home dashboards: Each user connects to others via a home dashboard that displays consumed content and personalized reading recommendations from friends.

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  Unique book profiles: Books are given a social meaning by a community value score that connects to user ratings and reviews. Social recommendations are powered by user feedback and a proprietary numerical system.

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  Book clubs re-envisioned: Users can create book groups to discuss and share reading experiences. Users can also set personal data metrics for reading goals, create milestones and set challenges among friends to further reading as a social experience.

COPIA will begin its private, limited-invitation beta in January 2010. The public beta will launch in March 2010. At the time of public beta launch, COPIA will offer more than one million titles relevant to a wide range of ages, interests and genres across best-sellers, popular titles, textbooks and public domain titles, with new content being added daily.

In addition to launching COPIA, DMCWW also unveiled a diverse lineup of e-reader devices. The e-readers, branded OCEAN and TIDAL are full-featured wireless reading devices that enable users to connect with the COPIA community to discover, enjoy, share and purchase digital content including books, newspapers and magazines. The product offering includes both monochrome e-paper-based touchscreens and advanced color devices designed for rich color content. The devices are designed to extend the collaborative COPIA experience to readers across all genres of content and meet the needs of channel partners including mass market, entertainment, K-12 education as well as higher education.

Key features of the COPIA e-readers include:

The connected experience: COPIA e-reader users can instantly connect to TheCopia.com, a device-agnostic, online destination that enables readers of all ages to experience a completely new way to discover, enjoy, share and purchase books, newspapers, magazines and a wide variety of digital content. COPIA combines a social networking experience, collaboration and intuitive shared discovery with meaningful reading content. Students, as well as book groups, can highlight, annotate and connect to each other directly from the COPIA e-readers to the online COPIA community.

Broad access to content: The COPIA e-reader users will have access to a compelling array of content across best-sellers, popular titles, textbooks, public domain titles and an array of additional entertainment content, with new content being added daily.

The COPIA e-readers will be available for purchase online in April 2010 and at retail by June 2010 with prices ranging from $199 to $299 (MSRP).

For more information: www.thecopia.com/

ebrary Announces DASH! – Data Sharing, Fast

ebrary, provider of digital content products and technologies, announced in January 2010 that its Academic Complete subscribers can now quickly and easily upload, integrate and share an unlimited number of their own PDF documents right from their computers with DASH!^TM. This innovative new feature further increases the value of the company's flagship subscription e-book database, which offers multi-user access to a growing, multi-disciplinary selection of more than 45,100 authoritative titles from the world's leading publishers along with powerful research capabilities including InfoTools^TM.

ebrary unveiled DASH! at the American Library Association Midwinter Conference and used the new technology to create collections on a variety of topics including autism, natural disasters and breast cancer real time at the ebrary booth in the conference exhibits. The collections will be publicly available after ALA, similar to ebrary's H1N1 (Influenza) Information Research Center at http://h1n1.ebrary.com/

“DASH! is really a progression of our core technology, which turns PDF files into searchable, highly interactive databases in a very powerful and cost-effective way,” said Kevin Sayar, President of ebrary. “By making this capability available as a self-serve feature to our global community of Academic Complete customers, we can empower librarians to further facilitate knowledge and ideas. DASH! is just the tool. How librarians use it is entirely up to them.”

Currently in beta, DASH! enables authorized librarians to easily upload individual PDF files or batches of documents along with corresponding metadata from the convenience of their own computers. Documents are almost instantaneously added to a new collection that seamlessly integrates with Academic Complete as well as other ebrary products and services. Collections created with DASH! include all of ebrary's rich functionality for quickly and easily discovering and managing information online such as InfoTools, which turns every word into a portal to other online resources of the library's choice; highlighting and annotating; multiple search options; and personal bookshelves.

The beta version of DASH! is available to Academic Complete customers at no cost.

DASH!^TM (beta): www.ebrary.com/corp/techDASH.jsp

Internet Archive Launches BookServer: Vending and Lending Digital Books

The widespread success of digital reading devices has proven that the world is ready to read books on screens. As the audience for digital books grows, we can evolve from an environment of single devices connected to single sources into a distributed system where readers can find books from sources across the web to read on whatever device they have. Publishers are creating digital versions of their popular books, and the library community is creating digital archives of their printed collections.

On 19 October 2009, The Internet Archive introduced and demonstrated BookServer to a group of 500 in San Francisco. BookServer is an open system to find, buy or borrow these books, just as the Internet Archive uses an open system to find websites.

The BookServer is a growing open architecture for vending and lending digital books over the Internet. Built on open catalog and open book formats, the BookServer model allows a wide network of publishers, booksellers, libraries and even authors to make their catalogs of books available directly to readers through their laptops, phones, netbooks or dedicated reading devices. BookServer facilitates pay transactions, borrowing books from libraries, and downloading free, publicly accessible books.

Who can benefit from BookServer?

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  Authors find wider distribution for their work.

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  Publishers both big and small can distribute books directly to readers.

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  Book sellers find new and larger audiences for their products.

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  Device makers can offer access to millions of books instantly.

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  Libraries can continue to loan books in the way that patrons expect.

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  Readers get universal access to all knowledge.

For more information: www.archive.org/bookserver

Mendeley Growing: Eight Million Articles, 100,000 Users

When Mendeley's founders started writing their PhDs, they wondered why there wasn't a more convenient way of managing and sharing their collection of research papers. So they set out to develop a free research tool themselves, launching it in August 2008. Mendeley develops software for managing and sharing research papers as well as a website for discovering research trends and connecting to like-minded academics. The founders' vision to create a “Last.fm for research” excited Skype's former founding engineers, who became investors, and former Last.fm executive chairman Stefan Glänzer, who is now executive chairman of the company.

By April 2009, Mendeley users had uploaded one million articles to its database, and by November the number of articles had increased to eight million. Also by November 2009, the number of Mendeley users had grown to over 100,000 users.

Mendeley is a free, award-winning, desktop and web solution designed for managing and sharing research papers, discovering research data and collaborating online. Mendeley Desktop, a software client application available for Windows, Mac and Linux platforms, automatically extracts metadata, full-text and cited references from PDF files, builds up a personal research library and offers sophisticated searching, tagging and filtering functionality. It lets researchers share, synchronize and annotate their digital libraries collaboratively.

Data from Mendeley Desktop are exchanged with Mendeley web, an online research network where users can back up and access their library database, discover the most widely read papers in their academic discipline and connect to like-minded scientists and researchers.

Mendeley's feature highlights:

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  Create your personal bibliographic database using Mendeley's automatic extraction of document details (author, title, journal, keywords, etc.) and cited references from PDFs, as well as automatic retrieval of additional information from CrossRef, PubMed, ArXiv, etc.

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  Read, full-text search, annotate and highlight your PDF research papers in Mendeley's integrated PDF viewer.

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  Synchronize your bibliographic database across multiple machines, share it with colleagues, manage it online or embed bibliographies on blogs and websites.

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  Quickly cite your papers in Microsoft Word or OpenOffice Writer and create bibliographies with a single click.

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  Capture citations from websites using Mendeley's crossbrowser Web Importer or via synchronization with CiteULike.

Mendeley has won Plugg.eu's “European Start-up of the Year” Award 2009 and TechCrunch Europas “Best Social Innovation Which Benefits Society” Award 2009. “As the database of Mendeley Web grows, you will be able to view statistics about emerging research topics in every academic discipline, and readership statistics for each individual paper,” explains Victor Henning, one of Mendeley's co-founders.

The company's investors and advisors include former founders and executives of Skype, Last.fm and Warner Music Group, as well as academics from Cambridge and Johns Hopkins University and is supported by Eurostars, an R&D initiative funded by the European Community and UK's Technology Strategy Board.

For more information, and to download Mendeley: www.mendeley.com/

Registry of Open Access Repositories Upgraded

Les Carr, Project Director for EPrints and Tim Brody, developer on the EPrints team, have announced the debut of an upgraded version of the ROAR service, thanks to recent JISC funding shared jointly between ROAR and the Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR).

The Registry of Open Access Repositories (ROAR), which provides the open access community with quantitative analyses of open access repositories across the world, has now been reworked as a repository itself. Collecting, updating and editing information about open access repositories is now part of a familiar repository workflow, and consequently much easier to handle. Open access repository managers can register for an ROAR account to enter and update information about their own repositories. The hope is that the improved facilities will result in better quality information and an improved service for all stakeholders.

Built on top of the information acquisition, storage and dissemination facilities of the EPrints repository platform, ROAR provides the following familiar features:

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  Cataloging individual repositories and their attributes.

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  Easy addition of information about new repositories.

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  The option to share new repository information with OpenDOAR.

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  Listing repositories by location, purpose and software platform.

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  Analyses of the growth over time of individual repositories or groups of repositories.

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  Searching for repositories by various properties.

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  Searching the contents of groups of repositories using a Google customized search.

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  Access to the OAI-PMH data obtained from the Celestial harvester.

Repository platforms have matured greatly in recent years, adapting to the challenge of managing a wide range of research outputs, data and different forms of scholarly material. It seems only appropriate that information about the repository community should itself be held in a repository, allowing for easier update, flexible dissemination and improved sharing with other registry services such as OpenDOAR.

ROAR: http://roar.eprints.org/

International Internet Preservation Consortium Launches Web Archive Registry

The International Internet Preservation Consortium (IIPC) Access Working Group has launched a new registry of its members' web archives. Preserving the web is not a task of any single institution. It is a mission common to all IIPC members, and many practices and lessons are transferable.

The launch of the members' web archive registry showcases international collaboration for preserving Internet content for future generations. The registry currently includes descriptions of twenty one archives from Asia, Europe, North American and Oceania. As additional archives are made available by IIPC members, the registry will be updated.

The registry provides an overview of all members web archiving efforts and outputs, offering a single point of access to users of archived web content. It also provide detailed description of each web archive, including information about the collecting institution, the harvesting methods (domain, selective or thematic), the language of the user interface, methods for accessing the archived content and whether there are any access restrictions that researchers need to be aware of.

The registry was put in place by IIPC's Access Working Group, which focuses on initiatives, procedures and tools required to provide immediate access and to preserve the future access to Internet material in a web archive. The registry provides a basis for IIPC to explore integrated access and search in the future.

IIPC members' archive registry: http://netpreserve.org/about/archiveList.php

General information about the IIPC can be found at: http://netpreserve.org

Indiana U Awarded $2.38 Million Mellon Grant to Develop Library Software

A $2.38 million grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to Indiana University will be used to develop software created specifically for the management of print and electronic collections for academic and research libraries around the world.

IU will lead the Kuali OLE (Open Library Environment) project, a partnership of research libraries dedicated to managing increasingly digital resources and collections. Together, these libraries will develop “community source” software that will be made available to libraries worldwide.

Kuali OLE (pronounced Oh-LAY) partners include Indiana University; Florida Consortium (University of Florida representing Florida International University, Florida State University, New College of Florida, Rollins College, University of Central Florida, University of Miami, University of South Florida and the Florida Center for Library Automation); Lehigh University; Triangle Research Libraries Network (represented by Duke University and North Carolina State University); University of Chicago; University of Maryland; University of Michigan; and the University of Pennsylvania.

Large academic research libraries such as these manage and provide access to millions of items, using software to track inter-related transactions that range from ordering and paying for items to loaning materials to library patrons.

As the nature of library collections expands to include more digital materials – including leased electronic journals and digitized photograph collections – libraries are increasingly interested in developing management software for these resources, said Interim Ruth Lilly Dean of University Libraries Carolyn Walters.

“Libraries now create, lease and share digital materials, but the systems in place for cataloging and tracking these items are based on print collections,” said Walters. “With this project, we benefit from working together with a community of academic libraries that want to change the way that information is managed in the scholarly environment.”

“Research libraries are in dire need of systems that can support the management of research collections for the next-generation scholar,” said Robert H. McDonald, executive director for the project and IU's associate dean for library technologies. “This approach demonstrates the best of open-source software development, directed partnership resource needs and a market of commercial support providers to truly align with the needs of research libraries within the higher education environment.”

More than 200 libraries, educational institutions, professional organizations and businesses laid the groundwork for the Kuali OLE project by participating in the original OLE project, a design phase that was supported by an earlier grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and led by Duke University. Kuali OLE project researchers will now work to create a next-generation library system that breaks away from print-based workflows and reflects the changing nature of library materials and new approaches to scholarly work.

OLE became an official project of the Kuali Foundation in November. Kuali is a community of universities, colleges, businesses and other organizations that have partnered to build and sustain community-source software for higher education. This affiliation gives Kuali OLE tremendous expertise in developing and sustaining community-based software.

“The Mellon Foundation has a distinguished history of supporting transformative projects for education and cultural preservation,” said Brad Wheeler, Kuali Foundation board chair and vice president for information technology at IU. “We are grateful for their support of this open, extensible and deeply collaborative work among the OLE investing libraries. The libraries' choice to anchor the project in the Kuali Foundation will ensure its quality, openness and sustainability for years to come.” Wheeler and Deborah Jakubs, Rita DiGiallonardo Holloway University Librarian and vice provost for library affairs at Duke University, were recently elected co-chairs of the Kuali OLE Board of Directors at its initial board meeting in Washington, District of Columbia, on December 16, 2009.

For full press release see: http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/12849.html

Kuali OLE project: www.kuali.org/ole

WorldCat Basic API Now Available for Anyone to Develop Library-Related Applications

A new API is now available from OCLC that makes the world's largest library catalog available to anyone and everyone in a programmatic way.

Called WorldCat Basic, this new API is being offered as a very simple interface into WorldCat. Envisioned as a mashable access point for lightweight apps, WorldCat Basic API is available to anyone and everyone for non-commercial use. It is expected to be of most interest to developers who may not have ties to the library community, but who want to include library and community-focused, green and sustainable options for finding books and information.

Don Hamparian, a co-founder of the OCLC Developer Network, explains that “OCLC has been eager to make WorldCat even more accessible and available to interested developers for a number of years now. The release of the WorldCat Basic API demonstrates our commitment to transparency and accessibility for the developer community to work with this data. We believe this will help expand the potential uses of WorldCat for information seekers and the more than 10,000 libraries around the world that contribute cooperatively to WorldCat.”

WorldCat is the world's largest and most comprehensive bibliographic database, with more than 150 million items represented from libraries worldwide.

The WorldCat Basic API lets a developer search WorldCat and receive results for items in libraries such as books, videos, music and more. It uses OpenSearch technology and returns feeds in Atom and RSS. Results include information about authors, titles, ISBNs and OCLC numbers. Records will be returned in standard bibliographic citation formats such as APA, Chicago, Harvard, MLA and Turabian. The API will also provide links back to WorldCat.org for geographically sorted library information.

The WorldCat Basic API should prove especially helpful for mobile developers, as now library results can easily be added to shopping and/or comparison apps. In addition, there are six other Web Services available from OCLC: xISBN, xISSN, WorldCat Registry APIs, the OpenURL Gateway, WorldCat Identities and the WorldCat Search API. Ready-made WorldCat widgets are available for download from the WorldCat.org site.

Commercial uses of the WorldCat Basic API are encouraged, although interested parties are required to contact the WorldCat Partnership team to arrange access. OCLC Web Services continue to offer ways to connect people with knowledge through libraries, and for libraries to reap the benefits of library cooperation.

Gain access to the WorldCat Basic API from the WorldCat Affiliates site, where you will be assigned your own unique “wskey” to use the service.

WorldCat Affiliates site: www.worldcat.org/wcpa/content/affiliate/

Fedora Release 3.3 Now Available

The DuraSpace not-for-profit organization and the Fedora digital repository project have announced the release of Fedora 3.3. This release marks a new milestone in the process of developing the Fedora open-source software. For the first time, the Fedora community came together under the leadership of a Community Release Manager who facilitated the software development process and the integration of community contributions. The effort was led by Kai Strnad, Software Engineer with FIZ Karlsruhe (www.fiz-karlsruhe.de) and member of the eSciDoc project team (www.escidoc.org/).

Thornton Staples, Director of the Fedora Project from DuraSpace, observed, “The process of developing open-source software with a community-based process requires dedicated effort by many community participants, both developers and users. Though there is a perception that open-source software gets written by hobbyist programmers working on their own late at night, it is more commonly written by programmers working for institutions that are committed to the software and understand its shared benefits. FIZ-Karlsruhe has done us all a great service by making Strnad available to manage this release, getting us off to a running start in a community-led development process.”

There are many new features in Fedora 3.3 including:

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  Support for relationships among datastreams within digital objects, including API methods for manipulating relationships and indexing.

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  Integration of the Fedora Enhanced Security Layer, a new community-developed module to support a wider range of authentication methods.

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  Improvements to the Fedora REST API.

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  Support for retrieving content using a File URI scheme during ingest.

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  Support for Microsoft SQL Server.

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  Support for Mulgara to 2.1.4, proving a significant performance boost.

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  Upgrade of bundled Tomcat to version 6.

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  Support for HTTP Proxy server for getting external content.

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  Improvements and enhancements to the Fedora documentation.

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  Bug fixes, improving the overall stability of the repository.

The Fedora Project is supported by the DuraSpace not-for-profit organization.

Download Fedora 3.3 here: http://fedora-commons.org/confluence/x/jQ3S

UKSG and NISO Release First KBART Recommendations for Improved OpenURL Data Supply

January 18, 2010: UKSG (originally the UK Serials Group) and the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) have announced the first report by the KBART (Knowledge Bases and Related Tools) Working Group, a joint initiative that is exploring data problems within the OpenURL supply chain. The KBART Recommended Practice (NISO RP-9-2010) contains practical recommendations for the timely exchange of accurate metadata between content providers and knowledge base developers.

The KBART Recommended Practice, a report from Phase I of the KBART project, provides all parties in the information supply chain with straightforward guidance about the role of metadata within the OpenURL linking standard, and recommends data formatting and exchange guidelines for publishers, aggregators, agents, technology vendors and librarians to adhere to when exchanging information about their respective content holdings.

“Six years after NISO's ratification of the OpenURL standard (ANSI/NISO Z39.88-2004), many stakeholders in the information supply chain still have a limited understanding of how best to share data to maximize the value of OpenURL linking,” says Peter McCracken, NISO co-chair of the KBART Working Group. UKSG's co-chair, Charlie Rapple of TBI Communications, adds, “It was important for us to get back to basics and provide step-by-step guidance to address some of the fundamental problems that were occurring. With their track records for practical leadership and their reach across the extended information community, UKSG and NISO have been ideal project sponsors.”

Sarah Pearson, E-Resources and Serials Coordinator at the University of Birmingham, is taking on the role of UKSG co-chair for KBART's Phase II. “As a librarian who has struggled with poor quality, outdated holdings data and the frustration this causes our users, I'm pleased to see some really practical guidance being made available. I hope to see widespread adoption of KBART's recommendations as they will lead to more reliable access for users, increased traffic for publishers, easier data management for vendors and reduced administration for librarians.”

The KBART Working Group will shortly embark on the project's Phase II, which will build on the foundation phase to address more complex data issues, including different types of content, emerging business models and=customized licensing. The UKSG Committee and the NISO Discovery to Delivery Topic Committee are in the final stages of approval.

For more information, to review the KBART Recommended Practice, or to find out how to get involved in future phases of KBART's work, please visit: www.uksg.org/kbart or www.niso.org/workrooms/kbart

Providing a Framework for Sustainable Access to Government Information: New Report from Ithaka S R

“Documents for a Digital Democracy: A Model for the Federal Depository Library Program in the 21st Century,” a report released in December 2009 from Ithaka S R, examines the essential role of the Federal Library Depository Program (FDLP) in distributing, providing access to and preserving government documents and how the transition of government information from print to digital impacts the Program's long-term approach and sustainability. Commissioned by the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) and the Chief Officers of State Library Agencies (COSLA), the changes articulated in the report are urgently needed as FDLP and other libraries strive to ensure long-term no-fee public access to government information.

“The FDLP was created when government information was printed and when members of the general public needed local access to documents. Times have changed and without a system-wide transformation of current practices, the ability to effectively distribute, provide access to and preserve this essential information is in jeopardy,” said Brinley Franklin, Vice Provost, University of Connecticut Libraries and President of ARL. “An efficient, up-to-date, coordinated program to ensure preservation and access, for both print and digital materials, is needed so the Program can continue to provide the permanent, no-fee public access that is so vital to the public and public understanding of our government.”

Ithaka S R interviewed nearly 90 individuals, including librarians from 40 institutions, in order to understand a broad range of perspectives on the pressures facing the FDLP. “We found that the Federal Depository Library Program faces a range of challenges,” stated Roger C. Schonfeld, co-author and Manager of Research for Ithaka S R. “Users increasingly prefer to access government information digitally, and participating libraries are feeling pressure to alter their approaches as incentives to continue to preserve print information decline and they struggle with how best to serve changing user needs. We hope this report helps to catalyze further action to create a better system for the future.”

The report offers a new vision for a system-wide framework that emphasizes the digitization of historical collections to enable dramatically expanded access to this material, greater flexibility in collection management, improved coordination of new government publications by the Government Printing Office (GPO) to ensure that access and preservation needs are adequately addressed, and an expanded role for librarians that emphasizes helping the public to locate, access and use the wide range of information available. The report stresses that preservation and information integrity, along with advanced access services, should be achieved both through formalized partnerships between the GPO and select libraries and archives and through decentralized approaches.

The importance of transforming the FDLP for the public should not be underestimated. “Immediately following the signing of our Declaration of Independence, horses galloped to the 13 colonies with typeset copies of the document detailing the birth of a new nation safe in saddlebags. Taxpayers of the 21st century deserve the same no-fee access to government information using the best technology available today and for tomorrow,” commented GladysAnn Wells, Director and State Librarian, Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records and COSLA Past President. “This Report sets the stage, makes solid recommendations, and empowers the work that must be done.”

Ithaka S R is the strategy and research arm of ITHAKA, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to helping the academic community use digital technologies to preserve the scholarly record and to advance research and teaching in sustainable ways.

Documents for a Digital Democracy: www.ithaka.org/ithaka-s-r/research/documents-for-a-digital-democracy

Ithaka S R: www.ithaka.org/ithaka-s-r

ConnectYard Launches New QuickConnect Widget to Make Learning Management Systems More Social

ConnectYard Inc., a leading provider of social and mobile technologies for educational institutions, announced in October 2009 the formal launch of its new QuickConnect Widget which integrates Facebook, Twitter, text messaging and email into a single communication thread within popular learning management system (LMS) solutions, including Blackboard, Desire2Learn, Moodle, Sakai and others. QuickConnect is a widget, or HTML badge, that can be easily added by instructors to courses on their LMS. The new feature allows students and instructors to communicate on their time and with their preferred media, thereby making learning possible anytime and anywhere.

Students post their thoughts and questions on lecture, homework, etc. through the QuickConnect Widget. Those messages are then delivered to other class members via their favorite social networking site, mobile phone or email. Both students and instructors have the option of replying to posts via Facebook, Twitter, text message or email. All responses are then added to the discussion thread within the course for other students and instructors to view and respond to. Threaded discussions can be forwarded to other classes and groups to expand the conversation and stored in a searchable knowledgebase for the benefit of future students.

One of the key benefits of QuickConnect is leveraging the communication technology of choice, including Facebook, Twitter and text messaging to communicate without the need for “friending” and “texting” students directly – so there are no privacy concerns. Instructors are not required to join any social network; they can respond to queries directly via email, while allowing students to participate in the conversation using their preferred mode of communication. Since QuickConnect supports asynchronous messaging, students can post queries and replies when they are studying after hours and instructors can respond during normal business hours.

“Email alone is no longer an effective tool to reach today's students and although some students rarely log into their institution's LMS, they check their phones and Facebook accounts multiple times per day,” said Donald Doane, the Company's CEO. “The QuickConnect Widget provides an optimal channel for instructors to reach and connect with students outside of the classroom where they live and socialize.”

QuickConnect widget: www.connectyard.com/info/widget.php

BCR Partners with Mosio to Bring Text a Librarian Service to Member Libraries

BCR (Bibliographical Center for Research) is partnering with Mosio Inc. to bring its Text a Librarian service to BCR member libraries. Using mobile phone technology, patrons can text questions to reference services from their mobile phones and librarians can type answers on a web-based interface.

Text a Librarian's feature-rich mobile messaging system is a comprehensive, web-based interface (called a “Microboard”) that is easy to implement and use. Accessible by more than 260 million US mobile phones, librarians can log on and service patrons on any computer or mobile device with Internet access.

“BCR is pleased to be able to offer this new technology to our member libraries,” said Brenda Bailey-Hainer, BCR President and CEO. “With its ease of use and competitive pricing, Text a Librarian will allow libraries to provide the services patrons want at a cost that is affordable.”

“We are really excited to see so many libraries embracing text messaging as the new way to communicate easily and efficiently with their patrons. Our partnership with BCR only makes it easier for libraries to implement Text a Librarian,” said Gabe Macias, VP of Sales and Marketing at Mosio.

Visit: www.bcr.org/productivity/reference/textalibrarian/textalibrarian-premium.html

Mosio's Text a Librarian: www.textalibrarian.com/

MLC AND INCOLSA Members Approve Merger

The members of the Michigan Library Consortium (MLC) and INCOLSA Inc. approved the merger of the two organizations at special meetings held on 16 December 2009 (MLC) and 17 December 2009 (INCOLSA). Effective February 15, 2010, Randy Dykhuis, MLC Executive Director, will become the Executive Director of the new organization, Midwest Collaborative for Library Services (MCLS).

“As we move forward as a combined organization, I look forward to continuing the good work that both organizations have done and expanding services in both states,” Dykhuis said. “With our combined membership we expect to deliver enhanced savings on services such as group licenses and to expand resource sharing options for residents of both states.”

Marnie Maxwell, INCOLSA Interim Director, said, “We are gratified by the overwhelmingly positive vote from Indiana libraries. MCLS will be a dynamic partnership that will ensure Indiana and Michigan libraries continue to move forward, serving the most people with the best possible library services.”

The MCLS will be authorized to begin operations on 15 February 2010. MCLS will have a combined membership of over 1,300 institutions of all types and sizes. MCLS will be governed by an interim board made up of eight Indiana librarians and eight Michigan librarians until the governing board is elected in Fall 2010. The non-profit membership organization will provide Michigan and Indiana libraries with a convenient, single point of contact for training, group purchasing and technical support for electronic resources.

More information on the merger: http://mlcnet.org/cms/sitem.cfm/about/mlc-incolsa_merger/

MCLS: http://mlcnet.org/