ICOLC Statement on Global Economic Situation

The International Coalition of Library Consortia (ICOLC) has issued a statement about the impact of the global economic situation on libraries and database licensing in particular. Two consortia of which UK is a member – SAALCK and SOLINET – are signatories to the statement. You will find the full detail at http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6630818.html?industryid=47109

The statement sends a strong message from all the major consortia in the world that it cannot be business as usual in the months ahead as we renew and/or cancel subscriptions and database agreements.

ARL Career Enhancement Program Fellows 2009 Selected

In an earlier message I included information about the three fellows in this program who will be coming to UK. From the ARL press release:

The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) Career Enhancement Program Coordinating Committee has selected 18 fellows to participate in the inaugural offering of the program.
The ARL Career Enhancement Program, funded by the Institute for Museum and Library Services and ARL member libraries, gives MLS students from underrepresented groups an opportunity to jump-start their careers in research libraries by providing a robust fellowship experience in an ARL member library. This program reflects the commitment of ARL members to create a diverse research library community that will better meet the new challenges of global competition and changing demographics.

The 2009 Career Enhancement Program fellows are:

Anissa Ali, Wayne State University
Sandra Baker, University at Albany, State University of New York
Genevia Chamblee, University of North Texas
Jason Escalante, Pratt Institute
Regina Gong, Wayne State University
George Gottschalk, University of Oklahoma
Katie Henningsen, Long Island University
Susan Hoang, San Jose State University
Hyeran Kang, Indiana University
Adrienne Lai, University of British Columbia
Sara Lee, Pratt Institute
Arturo Longoria, University of Texas at Austin
Bethany McGowan, University of South Carolina
Diana Olivares, University of Arizona
Monica Shin, Simmons College
Veronica Vichit-Vadakan, University of Washington
Minglu Wang, University of Iowa Y
ani Yancey, University of Maryland

The Career Enhancement Program has four main components: a six- to twelve-week fellowship experience in an ARL library, a mentoring relationship with a professional librarian throughout the fellowship, participation in the ARL Leadership Institute, and career placement assistance. The host institutions for the fellowship experience are:

University at Albany, State University of New York
University of Arizona
University of California, San Diego
Columbia University
University of Kentucky
National Library of Medicine
North Carolina State University
University of Washington

For more information about the ARL Career Enhancement Program, see http://www.arl.org/diversity/cep/.

Midwinter Meeting in Second Life

From American Libraries Direct

Midwinter Meeting in Second Life

The 2009 Midwinter Meeting kicks off January 24 in Denver. You can get in on the virtual fun by visiting Second Life and attending the festivities there. All activities will take place on ALA Island, ALA’s virtual space. The Main Stage is located at 128, 107, 29. In Second Life, you can teleport there directly. Here is a list of events....

JISC Launches ticTOCS

From American Libraries Direct

JISC launches ticTOCS

The Joint Information Systems Committee has launched its ticTOCS service after a significant trial period. The service aggregates the tables of contents (TOCs) from 11,470 scholarly journals from 422 publishers, for a total of 296,186 full-text articles. (Of course, you or your institution must have access to the full text of these journals to view them; the table of contents, though, is free.) The idea behind ticTOCs is to make finding and subscribing to table of contents RSS feeds a simple process. This free service is long overdue....RSS4Lib, Dec. 19

Find a New Thing to do with Google

From American Libraries Direct

Find a new thing to do with Google

You can do a lot more than search the Web with Google nowadays, from reading newspapers in languages you don’t speak to seeing the natural habitat of Komodo dragons. Discover something new to do with Google by clicking on one of these 52 titles to watch a how-to video and try it for yourself....Google Things To Do

Bush Data Threatens to Overlaod National Archives

From American Libraries Direct

Bush data threatens to overload National Archives

The National Archives has put into effect an emergency plan to handle electronic records from the Bush White House amid growing doubts about whether its new $144-million computer system can cope with the vast quantities of digital data it will receive when President Bush leaves office on January 20. The electronic record of the Bush years is about 50 times as large as that left by the Clinton White House in 2001, archives officials estimate. Under federal law, the government has “complete ownership, possession, and control” of presidential and vice-presidential records....New York Times, Dec. 27

Google Book Search's Treasure Trove

From American Libraries Direct

Google Book Search’s treasure trove

Ever since Google began scanning printed books four years ago, scholars have been able to tap a trove of information that had been locked away in libraries and antiquarian bookstores. According to Dan Clancy, engineering director for Google Book Search, every month users view at least 10 pages of more than half of the one million out-of-copyright books that Google has scanned into its servers. But some scholars worry that Google users are more likely to search for narrow information than to read at length....New York Times, Jan. 4

19 Cool Gadgets for your office

From American Libraries Direct

19 cool gadgets for your office

The office can be a cold, hard, unfeeling, life-sucking place to spend your working days, but then again you don’t have to live in Dilbertsville. For all the stigma surrounding the office, you’re getting a unique opportunity to interact with people and your environment. Here are 19 gadgets that will help turn your four walls into a techie heaven, like this USB coffee warmer (right)....The Hottest Gadgets, Sept. 16

20 Reasons why 2009 will be the year of the ebook

From American Libraries Direct

20 reasons why 2009 will be the year of the eBook

Chris Andrews writes: “This eBook industry that we are talking about here, which will grow significantly over the coming year, has been emerging for the last two years. It includes a whole new generation of technology specifically designed to enhance the experience of reading an eBook. 2009 will become the year of the eBook. Here, in no particular order, is why.”...Gutenberg.com, Jan. 1

Peter Hesseldenz Appointed Academic Liaison for Business and Economics

Peter Hesseldenz has accepted the position of Academic Liaison for Business and Economics in the Research and Education Division. He will be transferring from his temporary assignment to his faculty position on February 1. Peter has worked for the Libraries since January 2002, first as an Image Management Specialist, and then as a Reference Librarian in Young Library. He has a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and Master's degrees in both English and Library Science from the University of Kentucky. In his new position, Peter will serve as Academic Liaison for the College of Business and Economics. His responsibilities will include collection management, subject-specific reference and research assistance, and the development of course-related information literacy instruction for the College. He will also assist with general reference and library instruction. Please congratulate Peter on his move to the faculty ranks!

Karen Zeibak Resigns to Take Position in Connecticut

Karen Zeibak, Library Technician and Evening Supervisor in the Medical Center Library, ended her employment on January 5. Karen was employed by the Libraries since January 31, 2006, and earned her MLS at UK during her employment time. She has accepted a professional librarian position with the Wilton Library Association in Wilton, Connecticut. We thank her for the high quality of her work, her positive attitude and for the excellent customer service skills and good judgment she brought to her position. We wish her much personal and professional success for the future.

Head of Collection Management Position to be Re-Posted

The Head of Collection Management search has been concluded without a hire. The position description has been reviewed and revised and has been submitted for posting. Application details will be announced soon.

IMLS Fellows

I’m pleased to announce that three library fellows have been selected in the ARL Career Enhancement Program. These three fellows will be coming to us for a 6-12 week period in the summer of 2009. We will be meeting with the fellows at the ALA Midwinter Meeting next week in Denver to begin finalizing more details about their time with us. All of the fellows are currently in library school (a requirement of the grant program). The fellows and their UK mentors and supervisors follow:

Anissa Ali – R&E
Mentor = Mary Molinaro
Supervisor = Toni Greider
Enrolled at Wayne State University

Katie Henningsen – SCDP
Mentor = Gail Kennedy
Supervisor = Deirdre Scaggs
Enrolled at the Palmer School, Long Island University

Bethany McGowan – MCL
Mentor = Mary McLaren
Supervisor = Tag Heister
Enrolled at the University of South Carolina

We’ll have more detail on their time with us as the planning proceeds.

Europeana Reopens

From American Libraries Direct

Europeana reopens

The European Union’s new Europeana digital library reopened December 23 after crashing within hours of its launch in November due to surging interest. European Commission spokesman Martin Selmayr said the website was working after its server capacity had been quadrupled and it had been stress-tested to deal with user interest. However, a message on the site said that “the user experience may not be optimal.”...PC Pro, Dec. 23; Agence France-Presse, Dec. 23

New Mobile e-Book Release

From American Libraries Direct

New mobile eBook release

ScrollMotion, a New York mobile application developer, has concluded deals with a number of major publishing houses, and is in talks with several others, to produce newly released and best-selling eBooks as apps for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Publishers now on board include Houghton Mifflin, Simon and Schuster, Random House, Hachette, and Penguin Group USA. The first official books began to roll out December 22 and include such titles such as Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight and Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass....Epicenter, Dec. 22

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year and welcome back to the office. The extended time away from the office was a wonderful time for me and I hope you enjoyed your time with family and friends. Certainly the year ahead will be fraught with challenge but I am confident that together we can deliver excellent service for our students and faculty and advance many of our plans and agendas. I feel recharged and refreshed and look forward to the year ahead.

Lyrasis -- New Organization to be Formed from the Merger of SOLINET and PALINET

Many of you know that the SOLINET and PALINET networks have been working for almost a year to make a decision to merge their organizations together to better serve the libraries in their regions and beyond. Earlier this week, SOLINET and PALINET announced the name of the new organization – Lyrasis. You can find more detail about the new name at the merger website -- http://www.mergerupdate.org/.

SOLINET (and PALINET) have just opened the voting process for each of their memberships to approve the Boards’ recommendations to proceed with a merger. You can find those documents at http://www.mergerupdate.org/SOLINET%20Voting%20Documents.aspx Voting will conclude on January 31st and the final vote ratified at a special membership meeting in Atlanta on February 4th. Each governing member has one official vote – in our case I believe that MCL, Law and the University Libraries are governing members and the director/dean of each of our libraries will vote.

As the Board Chair of SOLINET, I am very excited about what lies ahead for Lyrasis. I have agreed to continue for an additional year on the board of Lyrasis as vice chair (see board slate in the voting documents). This is a time of great change for library consortia particularly those who do business with OCLC.

Trends in Academic Library Research

From American Libraries Direct

Trends in academic library research

ACRL has issued a new publication, Academic Library Research: Perspectives and Current Trends, edited by Marie L. Radford and Pamela Snelson. The title is number 59 in the ACRL Publications in Librarianship monographic series, edited by Craig Gibson. The book combines theoretical scholarship with real-world research, including case studies and user surveys, designed to inform practice....

Google Pushes for a More Searchable Federal Web

From American Libraries Direct

Google pushes for a more searchable federal web

For years, the U.S. government has been unwilling or unable to make millions of its web pages accessible to search engines. Now Google CEO Eric Schmidt has a unique opportunity to change that as an informal adviser to President-Elect Barack Obama. Much of the information that the search engines are asking for is already available on the Web, but users have become accustomed to finding information by typing queries into one of the engines—and give up if they don’t find it....Washington Post, Dec. 11

Answers about the New York Public Library

From American Libraries Direct

Answers about the New York Public Library

New York Public Library President and Chief Executive Officer Paul LeClerc answered a series of questions about the library and its services from New York Times readers. Many of the questions involved how libraries were changing in response to new information technologies. One answer: “Libraries will need to be there for those who simply do not have the means to satisfy their information and educational needs elsewhere. In addition, we have to remember that libraries are the only indoor communal spaces left in New York.”...New York Times, Dec. 10–12

Mobile Phone to be Primary Internet Link in 2020

From American Libraries Direct

Mobile phone to be primary internet link in 2020

A survey of internet leaders, activists, and analysts shows they expect major tech advances as the phone becomes a primary device for online access, voice-recognition improves, artificial and virtual reality become more embedded in everyday life, and the architecture of the internet itself improves. That is one of the key findings in a new report, The Future of the Internet III (PDF file), based on a survey of experts by the Pew Internet and American Life Project that asked respondents to assess predictions about technology and its roles in the year 2020....Pew Internet and American Life Project, Dec. 14

New York Public Library Joins the Flickr Commons

From American Libraries Direct

New York Public Library joins the Flickr Commons

Ben Vershbow writes: “We are delighted to be the latest institution to join in the Flickr Commons endeavor, with an initial contribution of 1,300 images culled from various areas of our diverse photographic collections. We think of this as a sort of appetizer course, a sampler of collections accessible in greater breadth and depth on the NYPL Digital Gallery, and on-site in our network of libraries. We expect to learn a lot from Flickr users and are thrilled at the exposure that this project will give to our photographic collections.”...Blogging@NYPL, Dec. 16