The Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada reached an agreement with copyright collective Access Copyright on April 16 after protracted negotiations, according to University Affairs. Access Copyright is a not-for-profit organization that represents the rights of, and distributes royalties to, many Canadian writers, artists and publishers. However it remains to be seen how many [...]
Defining “Authentic Librarianship” | Peer to Peer Review
April 26, 2012 By 7 Comments
In my first column, I touched briefly on an idea that I would like to expand upon here, and then use as a foundational concept for my future columns. It’s the idea of “authentic librarianship.” First of all, though, I have to confess to a mild knee-jerk reaction against the use of the word “authenticity” [...]
Learning to be a Better Decision Maker | Leading From the Library
April 26, 2012 By 1 Comment
Sage College Surprise Bequest To Fund New Library
April 23, 2012 By Leave a Comment
The Sage Colleges received a $9 million bequest for a new campus library, the Times-Union reported on April 19. The college had no idea the gift, the second largest in the school’s history, was coming. Lucile Rosenfeld Shea attended Russell Sage in 1937-1938, and had donated modestly since. Shea was so private that school officials [...]
The Library as the People’s API | Peer to Peer Review
April 19, 2012 By 6 Comments
Demise of the Ed.D. | From the Bell Tower
April 19, 2012 By Leave a Comment
When Harvard University’s Education School said it would end its Ed.D. program many higher education experts questioned if this would start a trend. If it does that could be the end of a popular degree for academic librarians. I’m going to do some generalization here. Based on my experience, many of our academic librarian colleagues [...]
Reaching the Wikipedia Generation: Reference Roundtable Tackles Trends and Thorny Issues
April 18, 2012 By Leave a Comment
On January 21, 2012, at the American Library Association (ALA) Midwinter Meeting in Dallas, LJ met with reference publishers, database aggregators, and public and academic reference librarians to discuss recent events and issues in the library world. It had been an exciting week. In protest against the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA), which would have effectively forced online sites to police user-generated content, online reference giant Wikipedia had “gone dark” for a day.
The blackout was fresh in everyone’s mind and inspired some soul-searching about overreliance on this resource by patrons and librarians alike. But the group covered lots of other topics, too, from debates over patron-driven acquisition (PDA) and how to get reluctant students and faculty into academic libraries, to innovative ways to measure usage and get marketing help from vendors. The following comments are highlights of the conversation.
Directory of Open Access Books Goes Live
April 13, 2012 By Leave a Comment
OAPEN (Open Access Publishing in European Networks) and SemperTool today launched the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) in a beta version, to enable user feedback and further develop the service. First announced at the end of February, the directory will function as a discovery service for peer reviewed books published under an Open Access [...]
Thomson Reuters Names 2011 Hottest Science Research
April 13, 2012 By Leave a Comment
The Intellectual Property & Science business of Thomson Reuters today announced The Hottest Research of 2011, a ranking by Science Watch, its open Web resource for science metrics and analysis. This year’s group of 15 Hottest Researchers each contributed to at least 10 Hot Papers. Eric S. Lander of The Eli and Edythe L. Broad [...]
Professionals, Counseling | Peer to Peer Review
April 12, 2012 By Leave a Comment
I officially became a lawyer at a ceremony held during a special session of the Ohio Supreme Court, at which I and a couple of hundred other new law school graduates received our law licenses. After I had been handed my license in this graduation-like event, one of the State Supreme Court Justices greeted me [...]
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