New & Noteworthy

Citation

(2011), "New & Noteworthy", Library Hi Tech News, Vol. 28 No. 7. https://doi.org/10.1108/lhtn.2011.23928gaa.001

New & Noteworthy

Article Type: New & Noteworthy From: Library Hi Tech News, Volume 28, Issue 7

Measuring smartphone adoption and usage: report from Pew Internet Project

In its first standalone measure of smartphone ownership, the Pew Internet & American Life Project finds that one third of American adults – 35 percent – own smartphones. The project’s May 2011 survey found that 83 percent of US adults have a cell phone of some kind, and that 42 percent of them own a smartphone.

The report’s definition of a smartphone owner includes anyone who falls into either of the following two categories:

1. 1.

   One-third of cell owners (33 percent) say that their phone is a smartphone.

2. 2.

   Two in five cell owners (39 percent) say that their phone operates on a smartphone platform (these include iPhones and Blackberry devices, as well as phones running the Android, Windows or Palm operating systems).

Several demographic groups have high levels of smartphone adoption, including the financially well-off and well-educated, non-whites, and those under the age of 45. Smartphone ownership is highest among Americans in their mid-twenties through mid-thirties, as fully 58 percent of 25-34 year olds own a smartphone. Smartphone ownership begins to tail off at around 45 years of age, before dropping dramatically at around age 65 (just one in ten seniors own a smartphone, and 44 percent do not have a cell phone of any kind).

Some 87 percent of smartphone owners access the internet or email on their handheld, including two-thirds (68 percent) who do so on a typical day. When asked what device they normally use to access the internet, 25 percent of smartphone owners say that they mostly go online using their phone, rather than with a computer. While many of these individuals have other sources of online access at home, roughly one-third of these “cell mostly” internet users lack a high-speed home broadband connection.

The results are based on a national telephone survey of 2,277 adults conducted April 26-May 22, 2011. 1,522 interviews were conducted by landline phone, and 755 interviews were conducted by cell phone. Interviews were conducted in both English and Spanish.

Read the full report: http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2011/Smartphones/Summary.aspx

New Bodleian Libraries app features highlights from the King James Bible exhibition

The Bodleian Libraries have launched their first app, entitled “The Making of the King James Bible”. Created in conjunction with Toura, a leading solution for cloud-based mobile app development, the King James Bible app is being launched to coincide with the 400th anniversary of the Bible’s publication and the Bodleian’s summer exhibition, Manifold Greatness: Oxford and the Making of the King James Bible (until 4 September 2011).

Featuring over 60 items from the exhibition, the app brings together, for the first time, many of the books and documents that lay behind the King James Bible translation. It traces the history of the book, particularly the role of Oxford, and the influence of the translation in England up to 1769. It was in this year that the King James Bible was first revised – resulting in the “Oxford Standard” version that the world knows today.

Highlights include:

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  concise commentary from the curators of the exhibition, written exclusively for the app;

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  narration from Oxford’s Diarmaid MacCulloch – prize-winning author and one of the world’s leading authorities on the history of the Church; and

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  celebrations from the University of Oxford, including a King James Bible master class, guest lectures, and Evensong performed by the choir at Corpus Christi college.

Explore a variety of items in high resolution, including:

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  the only surviving copy of the fourty 1602 Bishops’ Bibles distributed to the translators for their use, and annotated by them;

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  Anne Boleyn’s velvet-bound 1534 copy of William Tyndale’s English translation of the New Testament (on loan from the British Library);

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  old English manuscripts, such as Aelfric’s version of the Heptateuch, the MacRegol gospels, and one of the earliest surviving Wycliffite Bibles (the first full translation of the Bible into English);

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  a glimpse into the process of translation, with the original rules of translation (also from the British Library) and John Bois’s notes from the general meeting (on public display for the first time);

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  a rare copy of the “Wicked Bible” of 1631 (most were burned at the time), which was so named because of a famous misprint in the seventh commandment; and

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  Handel’s conducting copy of the Messiah (1741-2), along with a “libretto” (word book) that was sold for audience use during the Oxford debut of the Messiah in 1749.

Richard Ovenden, Deputy Librarian, Bodleian Libraries, said:

A key aspect of the Bodleian cultural strategy is to share our renowned collections with the general public locally and internationally. The new technology is giving us the opportunity to reach out to people worldwide and we are pleased we can make our treasures available in this format as well.

The app series will enable the Bodleian Libraries to share their great collections in yet another format. The organization has a series of outreach programmes such as the publishing programme, three annual major exhibitions and monthly thematic displays, termly lectures, talks and seminars.

The next app in the series will appear in the autumn and be a browsable collection of some of the Bodleian’s greatest treasures including the newly-acquired Jane Austen manuscript, Magna Carta, Shakespeare’s First Folio, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

More about the exhibition: www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/about/exhibitions

Purchase the app at: http://apps.toura.com/bodleian-library-at-oxford/the-making-of-the-king-james-bible

Winners of API Challenge 1.0 announced: competition selects most original apps using Springer’s metadata and content APIs

Springer has concluded its application programming interface (API) Challenge 1.0 and chosen the first, second, and third place winners. The creators of the unique applications will be awarded cash prizes of $5,000, $2,500 and $1,000 USD, respectively. An interdisciplinary panel of judges evaluated the submitted works, ranking them on three categories: creativity and originality, user experience and design, and value and benefit. Owing to the overwhelming number of applications submitted, the judging period was extended in order to give all contestants the same opportunity to have their submissions evaluated.

The Springer API Challenge 1.0 was a competition for original, non-commercial applications using Springer metadata and content APIs. The Challenge’s goal was to offer users new ways to find, visualize, and/or manipulate relevant data drawn from Springer’s large and growing content database.

The first prize was awarded to SpringerQuotes. This application lets the user search and read the open access articles from Springer in a web application. If the user finds an interesting article, he or she can create and share quotes from paragraphs or even individual sentences by highlighting these sections directly in the web browser.

KontentLinks received the second prize. This innovative way of exploring scientific content allows researchers to create meaningful connections between various types of content (i.e. articles, book chapters, images, etc.), share, rate and comment on them, and finally explore the emerging content webs.

The judges awarded the third prize to JournalSuggest, a website which provides suggested answers to some common questions that researchers have when preparing articles or grants.

Metadata for more than 4.8 million documents from Springer journals, books and protocols was made available to the participants. Also available were full-text content, metadata and images for approximately 80,000 open access articles from BioMed Central and SpringerOpen journals. The awarded applications are now freely available to end-users for one year.

More information: www.springer.com/about+springer/media/pressreleases?SGWID=0-11002-6-1184121-0

NYU, UIUC, and UCSD Libraries partner to develop next-generation archives management system

New York University has been awarded a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to lead a partnership in developing the software that integrates Archon and the Archivists’ Toolkit (AT) into an open-source, next-generation archives management system. The integrated product – known by the working title ArchivesSpace – will incorporate the best features and functions of Archon and the AT.

The project is a collaboration among the libraries of NYU, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where Archon was developed, and the University of California, San Diego, which developed AT in partnership with NYU.

ArchivesSpace will capitalize on the functional strengths of AT and Archon, both of which were released in 2006, to create a more powerful, flexible, and resilient archives collection management and access system. By design, ArchivesSpace will be less costly to maintain and will appeal to an even broader segment of the archives community than either of the two existing tools.

The design for ArchivesSpace is the result of a year of research and planning, also funded by the Mellon Foundation, by the three partner libraries in consultation with archivists and technologists from a variety of academic and archival institutions.

ArchivesSpace will be open source, but user institutions will be asked to join a membership support structure. Members will be encouraged to participate in the governance of ArchivesSpace and in the prioritization of enhancements and fixes, and will have access to helpdesk resources. The main benefit of membership, however, will be sustainability, according to NYU Dean of Libraries Carol A. Mandel. “By supporting ArchivesSpace, members will ensure that the software keeps growing and responding to the needs of the community,” Mandel said.

Both AT and Archon have a strong community of members. “The AT is widely recognized for its tremendous impact on archival practice and the promotion and adoption of descriptive standards,” said Brian E.C. Schottlaender, the Audrey Geisel University Librarian at UC San Diego. “We look forward to further collaboration with our partners in building an archival software tool that capitalizes on the strengths of both AT and Archon.”

Paula Kaufman, Juanita J. and Robert E. Simpson Dean of Libraries and University Librarian, UIUC, emphasizes the importance of long-term use of the software. “Archon has served the needs of a wide range of archival organizations, including many that are very small,” she said. “ArchivesSpace development and membership will assure continued support for their archival work.”

Comprehensive information is available on the project website: http://archivesspace.org/

Blacklight Release 3.0 now available

Blacklight is a free and open source ruby-on-rails based discovery interface (a.k.a. “next-generation catalog”) especially optimized for heterogeneous collections. You can use it as a library catalog, as a front end for a digital repository, or as a single-search interface to aggregate digital content that would otherwise be siloed.

Release 3.0 of Project Blacklight is now available via Ruby Gems. Instructions for installing Blacklight or upgrading an existing installation can be found on the Blacklight wiki. A few things that are new in Blacklight 3.0:

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  Installable as a Gem.

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  Rails 3.0 and 3.1 compatible.

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  JRuby Support and Ruby 1.9.2 Support.

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  Automated Installation via Generators (rails generate Blacklight).

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  Uses the new Rails3 engines for easier integration into existing applications.

Full source code on GitHub: https://github.com/projectblacklight/blacklight/tree/v3.0.0

Project Blacklight wiki: https://github.com/projectblacklight/blacklight/wiki

VuFind version 2.1 released

A new version of VuFind, an open source, modular library resource portal designed and developed for libraries by libraries, has just been released. Significant new features of VuFind version 1.2 include support for expanded ILS integration (holds, renewals, etc. – currently supported by Voyager and Horizon, with more drivers to come), a brand new alternate mobile theme based on jQuery Mobile (currently labeled “experimental,” but worth a look), more accurate advanced search, more complete translation support than ever before, and many minor bug fixes and feature enhancements.

The new release can be downloaded at: http://vufind.org

VTLS’s RDA Sandbox continues adding participants, 2nd extension announced

With the announcement of the RDA Sandbox last fall, VTLS made it possible for librarians everywhere to acquire hands-on experience creating and modifying RDA Implementation Scenario One MARC records in a shared database with over 250,000 FRBRized linked records. The program has already been extended once and participation to date includes 76 registered users, 1,429 records added and 1,551 records modified. Participants range from library school students, faculty and staff from institutions ranging from state and national libraries, consortiums, research, corporate and academic libraries worldwide.

“As an active member of the RDA/MARC Working Group, I’m excited to be involved in providing this hands-on learning environment for catalogers around the world,” noted John Espley, Principal Librarian at VTLS:

I am particularly gratified that library science programs are beginning to use the sandbox as a teaching tool, using Virtua’s RDA support to educate and inform the next generation of librarians.

RDA will be implemented by the US National Libraries no earlier than January 2013. VTLS is continuing support of and participation in the RDA Sandbox until that date. Two informational sessions about the Sandbox were well attended at the recent ALA conference in New Orleans. The sessions will be repeated at the Midwinter conference in Dallas in January 2012 and will include new developments and ongoing results of the Sandbox program.

The RDA Sandbox is an excellent opportunity to practice and play with a system that is consistent with the RDA Implementation Scenario One. Participating in the Sandbox allows participants to create linked FRBR entity one records of work, expression, and manifestation. With the Sandbox participants have a complete cataloging system: authority control, original and copying cataloging, item record functionality, and serials control using MARC holdings records. Participants not only have the ability to work with traditional FRBR work, expression, and manifestation records, but also can work with all of the VTLS extensions to FRBR, such as linking recursive Works together using a “Super Work” or “Derivative Work” technique, and the ability to handle aggregates with the “reverse tree” functionality.

How the RDA Sandbox works: participants in the program are given access to a Virtua™ database and a specially customized Virtua™ cataloging client. Documentation will help you get started. Email support is also provided to lend assistance along the way and an RDA Sandbox Forum has been set up for all participants to share questions, answers and comments about their experiences. All of these services are available for a one-time charge of $60.00 (USA) to cover administrative costs.

Please note that all software and documentation is provided as a service to participating institutions. The information provided is, however, proprietary. All software and documentation is copyrighted and remains the property of VTLS Inc. The program is open to any library or librarian, but not to companies that are competitors of VTLS Inc.

Information available at: www.vtls.com/services/rdasandbox

First RDA vocabularies published

The Joint Steering Committee for Development of RDA (JSC), the DCMI/RDA Task Group, and ALA Publishing (on behalf of the co-publishers of RDA) have announced that the first group of RDA: Resource Description and Access controlled vocabularies have been reviewed, approved, and their status in the Open Metadata Registry (OMR) changed to “published.”

This status change, from “new-proposed” to “published”, signals that the final steps have begun in reviewing the work of the DCMI/RDA Task Group and ensuring that the RDA vocabularies (both elements and controlled vocabularies/concepts) are available in a stable form for the builders of applications. Additional reviews of the controlled vocabularies are in progress, with the parties involved expecting to finalize that group before starting on the element vocabularies. Both groups of vocabularies should be complete by the end of 2011, but developers and others should expect to see rolling announcements as reviews are completed.

Alan Danskin, Chair of the Joint Steering Committee, noted:

The RDA vocabularies are a fundamental component of RDA, promoting consistent description and discovery of bibliographic resources. The Committee is committed to publishing and maintaining the content of the RDA vocabularies, synchronized with the text of RDA, in order to support their use by the resource description community and by developers of Semantic Web applications.

JSC is grateful to the Task Group members and to the OMR for making possible the publication of RDA vocabularies as linked open data.

Gordon Dunsire, co-Chair of the DCMI/RDA Task Group, said:

This achievement is a significant waypoint on the collaborative journey initiated by the London meeting in 2007 between representatives of RDA and Semantic Web communities developing and maintaining metadata models covering bibliographic resources. We have learned much about each other along the way, and look forward to continuing to provide a bridge which supports our mutual interests to the benefit of all users of information. The RDA vocabularies represent many decades of library experience and practice which is now shared with the rest of the world.

Troy Linker, Publisher, ALA Digital Reference, said:

The publishing of the RDA vocabularies in an open registry is an important step forward in making RDA accessible to the international library community and system vendors, and, significantly, beyond the library community to the rest of the Semantic Web. Working with the JSC, the Co-Publishers for RDA are committed to ensuring synchronicity between RDA Toolkit and the registry.

The finished vocabularies can be viewed using the links below (the links lead to the description of the vocabulary itself, the specific terms can be viewed under the tab for “concepts”):

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  RDA Aspect Ratio: http://rdvocab.info/termLIst/AspectRatio

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  RDA Form of Musical Notation: http://rdvocab.info/termList/MusNotation

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  RDA Form of Notated Music: http://metadataregistry.org/uri/FormatNoteMus

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  RDA Layout of Cartographic Images: http://rdvocab.info/termList/layoutCartoImage

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  RDA Mode of Issuance: http://rdvocab.info/termLIst/ModeIssue

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  RDA Other Distinguishing Characteristic of the Expression of a Legal Work: http://metadataregistry.org/uri/OtherCharExpLegal

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  RDA Production Method for Tactile Resource: http://rdvocab.info/termList/prodTactile

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  RDA Reduction Ratio: http://rdvocab.info/termLIst/RDAReductionRatio

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  RDA Scale: http://metadataregistry. org/uri/scale

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  RDA Sound Content: http://rdvocab.info/termList/soundCont

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  RDA Status of Identification: http://rdvocab.info/termList/statIdentification

All the RDA vocabularies can be viewed in the OMR by using this page: http://metadataregistry.org/rdabrowse.htm. Those interested in following the work of review and publication of the vocabularies can subscribe to the Registry RSS feeds linked from that page. Questions on the OMR can be conveyed using the “Feedback” link on each Registry page.

Questions or comments on the review process or the content of specific vocabularies may be addressed to the Chair of the JSC, Alan Danskin (alan.danskin@bl.uk). Questions and comments on the encoding of the vocabularies or on the OMR may be addressed to Diane Hillmann (metadata.maven@gmail.com) or Gordon Dunsire (gordon@gordondunsire.com).

Joint Steering Committee for Development of RDA (JSC): www.rda-jsc.org/

DCMI/RDA Task Group: http://dublincore.org/dcmirdataskgroup/

NISO recommended practice on test modes for SUSHI servers issued for trial use

The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) has announced the availability of the recommended practice providing a test mode for Standardized Usage Statistics Harvesting Initiative (SUSHI) servers (NISO RP-13-201x) for a trial use period ending January 31, 2012. The SUSHI Protocol is a NISO standard (ANSI/NISO Z39.93-2007) that automates the retrieval of COUNTER usage statistics by libraries. The process of developing a SUSHI client requires testing against the SUSHI servers where usage data is expected to be harvested. The new recommended practice describes how content providers should provide access to their SUSHI servers in a test mode so that clients can be set up easier and faster, which is of benefit to both libraries and content providers:

We have seen a tremendous surge in the adoption of the SUSHI standard, especially since it became a requirement for compliance with Release 3 of the COUNTER Code of Practice,

states Oliver Pesch, Chief Strategist for E-Resource Access and Management Services at EBSCO Information Services and Chair of the NISO SUSHI servers working group:

But many SUSHI client developers have encountered difficulty in accessing content providers’ servers to conduct testing of their client software. These recommendations provide guidelines to content providers on how they can easily provide test areas to prospective users of their SUSHI server without providing live, usually confidential, data or placing undue strains on their production servers.

“SUSHI is quickly becoming one of NISO’s most popular standards,” explains Nettie Lagace, NISO’s Associate Director for programs:

Libraries that are using the SUSHI protocol have seen significant time savings in gathering their usage statistics. This recommended practice will make it even easier for SUSHI to be adopted by reducing and eliminating development roadblocks.

All content providers who provide COUNTER usage statistics are encouraged to implement the recommendations during the trial and provide their feedback. The draft recommended practice and an online comment form are available at: www.niso.org/workrooms/sushi/server/

Seeking synchronicity: new OCLC membership research report on virtual reference

A ground-breaking membership report from OCLC research suggests that by transforming virtual reference (VR) service encounters into relationship-building opportunities, librarians can better leverage the positive feelings people have for libraries. This is critically important in a crowded online space where the biggest players often don’t have the unique experience and specific strengths offered by librarians.

The report – seeking synchronicity

Revelations and Recommendations for Virtual Reference – demonstrates that today’s students, scholars and citizens are not just looking to libraries for answers to specific questions – they want partners and guides in a lifelong information-seeking journey.

Seeking synchronicity

Revelations and Recommendations for Virtual Reference, from OCLC Research, in partnership with Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, and additionally funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), distills more than five years of VR research into a readable summary featuring memorable quotes that vividly illustrate very specific and actionable suggestions. Taken from a multiphase research project that included focus group interviews, online surveys, transcript analysis and phone interviews, with VR librarians, users and non-users, these findings are meant to help practitioners develop and sustain VR services and systems. The report asserts that the “R” in “VR” needs to emphasize virtual “Relationships” as well as “Reference.” Among the topics addressed are:

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  how convenience is the “hook” that draws users into VR services;

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  the exaggerated death of ready reference;

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  the importance of query clarification in VR;

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  ways to boost accuracy and build better interpersonal relationships in VR;

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  what can be learned from VR transcripts;

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  generational differences in how people perceive reference interactions and determine success; and

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  the need for more and better marketing of a suite of services – a “multi-asking” approach.

The report’s two primary authors, Lynn Silipigni Connaway, PhD, OCLC Senior Research Scientist, and Marie L. Radford, PhD, Associate Professor, School of Communication & Information, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, said that the goal of their work together, which began in 2005, has been to deliver research-based recommendations that improve the VR services provided by information professionals.

“The purpose of this new publication,” Connaway said:

[…] is to showcase several years’ and several hundred pages’ worth of work with a few very specific, practical suggestions for sustaining and developing VR services and systems. This short report is designed to be a quick read that is informative in boiling down results from our multi-year research project involving two teams of researchers, at OCLC and Rutgers University.

“It is organized into topical chapters that are illustrated with graphs and quotations that bring our findings to life,” added Radford:

We also provide an introduction that serves as an executive summary so that readers can quickly understand and apply our research findings and recommendations to immediately improve VR experiences for all users.

View and download the report: www.oclc.org/us/en/reports/synchronicity/

More information on the project: www.oclc.org/research/activities/synchronicity/

OCLC Board of Trustees announces process to select next president and CEO

The OCLC Board of Trustees will engage OCLC members in the process to select a successor to Jay Jordan, who plans to retire as OCLC President and CEO at the end of June 2012. Larry Alford, Chair, OCLC Board of Trustees, and Chief Librarian, University of Toronto Libraries, has announced the composition of an Executive Search Committee from the OCLC Board that will lead the process to select a new leader of the cooperative.

Search Committee members are: Chair, Sandy Yee, Dean of the Wayne State University Libraries and Library and Information Science Program; Ed Barry, President Emeritus, Oxford University Press; Maggie Farrell, Dean of Libraries, University of Wyoming; Bernadette Gray-Little, Chancellor, University of Kansas; Kathleen Imhoff, Library Consultant; David Lauer, Former President and COO, Bank One, NA; James Neal, Vice President for Information Services and University Librarian, Columbia University; and Elisabeth Niggemann, Director General, Deutsche Nationalbibliothek.

The OCLC Board has hired an executive search firm that operates from principal business centers in North America, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific, to aid in the search process. The Executive Search Committee will develop and oversee a plan to ensure that perspectives from the OCLC Board, members and staff are included in the search process. The committee will soon form a Community Advisory Group that will involve the OCLC membership, OCLC staff and the library community at large in the process to select the next president.

The Community Advisory Group will provide input on the position profile that might include key attributes, skills and other considerations in a candidate. The group may offer specific referrals for consideration, and will work collaboratively with the Executive Search Committee to represent the interests of various stakeholders, including OCLC members and staff. “The board is committed to a search process that engages OCLC members,” said Mr Alford, during a meeting June 28 with OCLC staff in Dublin, Ohio:

The board believes that, given the culture of OCLC as a member-owned and -governed organization, and our commitment to member engagement, we should conduct this process in an open manner consistent with our desire to recruit the strongest possible leader for the OCLC cooperative.

The search process is expected to take up to a year. Mr Jordan announced his plans to retire during the OCLC president’s Luncheon at the ALA Annual Conference on June 27. He is the fourth president of OCLC, the nonprofit, membership, computer library service and research organization founded in 1967. By June 2012, Mr Jordan will have served 14 years as president and CEO, the longest tenure of any OCLC president.

Announcement of Jay Jordan’s plan to retire: www.oclc.org/news/releases/2011/201138.htm

Proquest acquires UK’s Expert Information British and Irish dissertations content

ProQuest has acquired UK-based Expert Information, publishers of Index to Theses™ and Theses.com, premier sources of hundreds of thousands of citations and abstracts for British and Irish dissertations and master’s theses. The addition of Expert Information will continue expanding the global impact of ProQuest’s dissertations publishing program, which includes ProQuest^® dissertations and theses, the world’s most widely consulted resource for graduate research.“ProQuest’s acquisition of Expert Information is a significant milestone toward the worldwide, integrated access to graduate works demanded by serious researchers,” said Rod Gauvin, ProQuest Senior Vice-President, publishing:

The content in Index to Theses™ and Theses.com captures landmark works and emerging research from the UK’s most influential universities. Including this deep historical archive strengthens ProQuest’s dissertations publishing program and enables us to serve a much broader range of the world’s researchers.

Expert Information abstracts and indexes more than a half million dissertations and theses, covering more than seventy years and continually growing by nearly 20,000 records per year. The content has been available via ProQuest through its product PQDT: UK and Ireland. Now, as part of the ProQuest family, the publishing program behind Expert Information’s products will expand to meet the global information needs of researchers.

Expert Information joins one of the world’s premier dissertation publishing programs. Approximately 99 percent of North American graduate degree-granting institutions contribute their students’ works to the ProQuest dissertations and theses database, enabling them to be easily discovered and accessed. Chosen by United States Library of Congress as the official archive of American dissertations, ProQuest dissertations and theses encompasses more than one quarter of a billion pages. Its 1.4 million digital dissertations and 2.9 million records create a unique and continually growing trove of research.

More information at: www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/

EBSCOhost becomes the platform for former netLibrary eBooks and audiobooks

EBSCO Publishing’s (EBSCO) extensive collection of more than 300,000 eBook and audiobook titles (formerly from NetLibrary^®) is now integrated on EBSCOhost^®. eBooks and audiobooks on EBSCOhost include the same great features as EBSCOhost databases along with specific features directly related to eBooks and audiobooks.

EBSCOhost now provides content from the most in-demand publishers available via new acquisition models including expanded ownership plans to serve the unique needs of libraries and their patrons. EBSCO is also paving the way for new models such as short-term leases, subscription models and expanded Patron Driven Acquisition (PDA) which will be introduced within the next few months.

EBSCO Publishing Vice President of Publisher Relations, Melissa D’Amato says librarians are looking for more access options:

As eBooks become a larger part of library collections, new access models are being introduced as publishers and libraries look for ways to improve access and serve the needs of eBook users.

A variety of acquisition options are being introduced for libraries using EBSCOhost as their eBook/audiobook platform. Libraries will be able to choose from ownership, lease and subscription models or combinations that suit their specific purposes.

The ownership model allows library administrators to determine how many simultaneous users they want to offer for each eBook purchased and to decide which model works best: unlimited users, three users or one user. The unlimited user model allows libraries to provide first-class service to patrons by purchasing eBooks with unlimited simultaneous access – so patrons will never experience turn-aways or holds for titles. The three user model is an option for titles that are in high demand while the one user model provides patrons access to eBooks one user at a time.

Later this year, EBSCO will introduce additional options including short-term lease and subscription models. For a percentage of the cost of a one user model, libraries can provide access to an eBook title through a short-term lease – available for one day, seven days, fourteen days or twenty-eight days. In addition to lease options, eBook anthologies that contain high-interest titles in several different subject areas will be available to libraries on a subscription basis. eBooks on EBSCOhost will also allow a library to select titles based on the library’s collection development initiatives and purchase only the titles that patrons use through PDA options.

PDA will enable libraries to build a collection with guaranteed usage. EBSCO’s PDA program helps libraries preserve their budgets while maintaining control over the collection development process. With PDA, librarians can create a list of titles using their own specific criteria, and then expose the bibliographic records to end-users without purchasing the titles. As titles are accessed by the user, the titles are purchased – guaranteeing that only eBook titles with usage are acquired. Titles are only triggered for purchase when “meaningful use” occurs including:

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  viewing an eBook for more than ten minutes;

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  viewing more than ten pages of an eBook;

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  printing, emailing, or copying & pasting a portion of an eBook page; and

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  downloading an eBook.

For more information: www.ebscohost.com/ebooks

On demand printing: one library’s experience with the Espresso Book Machine

Rick Anderson, Associate Director for Scholarly Resources & Collections in the J. Willard Marriott Library at the University of Utah, has posted a detailed entry on the Scholarly Kitchen blog describing his library’s experience with the Espresso Book Machine (EBM). “The Good, the Bad, and the Sexy: Our Espresso Book Machine Experience” summarizes the disappointments, successes, surprises, frustrations, benefits and challenges of the first years of implementing a new technology for on-demand publishing. Anderson addresses issues related to the functioning of the EBM hardware, offers his assessment of the content available for printing, and provides a frank critique of the problems associated with a “simple but ineffective Google-style search interface” coupled with metadata of “abominable quality”. He also describes the library’s successes in using the EBM to provide a faculty member with an otherwise unavailable, out-of-print title, and the unanticipated demands for printing blank-page journals and for self-publishing services using the ERM.

The Scholarly Kitchen is a moderated and independent blog established by the Society for Scholarly Publishing (SSP), a nonprofit organization formed to promote and advance communication among all sectors of the scholarly publication community through networking, information dissemination, and facilitation of new developments in the field.

Read the full blog post at: http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2011/08/02/the-good-the-bad-and-the-sexy-our- espresso-book-machine-experience/

SSP: http://sspnet.org/

EBM: www.ondemandbooks.com/