Subject Repositories Forum
SPARC launches new e-forum for subject repository development and success, Association of Research Libraries. Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (March 30, 2011).
Washington, DC – SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) has announced it will host a new discussion forum dedicated to the unique needs of the subject-based digital repository community. As repositories continue to grow as an engine for driving Open Access worldwide, new challenges and opportunities emerge and the demand for more focused conversations grows. The SPARC Subject Repositories Forum ("SPARC-SR") will enable subject repository managers, both inside and outside libraries, to share procedures and best practices, discuss possible joint projects, and support each other in providing access to an important realm of scholarly literature.For details on how to join, visit http://www.arl.org/sparc/about/emailsignup.shtml . Continue reading
Siva Vaidhyanathan on Book-TV
Siva Vaidhyanathan, the author of The Googlization of Everything (And Why We Should Worry), is on C-SPAN's Book TV This weekend. Siva is a professor of media studies and law at the University of Virginia. He is the author of Copyrights and Copywrongs and The Anarchist in the Library. For more, visit: googlizationofeverything.com. 2011 Virginia Festival of the Book Interview: Siva Vaidhyanathan, "The Googlization of Everything (And Why We Should Worry)" * Sunday, March 27th at 5:12pm (ET) * Sunday, March 27th at 11:15pm (ET) * Monday, March 28th at 5:12am (ET) update: Interview now available online at the C-SPAN video library. (Thanks to Gary!) Continue reading
Moving from the Google Book Store to a True Digital Public Library
Although many media stories about the Google Book Settlement continue to refer to Google's project as a "library," the smart media and knowledgeable people, including Judge Chin, understand that Google's project is not and never was a library: "It is instead a complex and large-scale commercial enterprise in which Google -- and Google alone -- will obtain a license to sell millions of books for decades to come." In the wake of the court decision, we are seeing calls and planning for establishing an actual public, digital library as an alternative to relying on Google. Here are some key articles:
- Concept Note, Digital Library of America Project (as of March, 2011). The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) will make the cultural and scientific heritage of humanity available, free of charge, to all. ...At the outset, its material is likely to remain hosted, as a primary matter, in a federated series of the existing digital repositories. The system would allow for broad and easy access to enormous existing collections, such as the Internet Archive, along with those in research libraries and other repositories and those to be created by future scanning.... [working] with the leading preservation technologies -- HathiTrust, DuraSpace, and LOCKSS, and potentially others -- to build out the nation's existing preservation architecture. [The project should] begin with works in the public domain that have already been digitized and are accessible through the Internet Archive, HathiTrust, [and] a broad range of government material...
- Thank You, Judge Chin, By Siva Vaidhyanathan, Chronicle of Higher Education (March 24, 2011). As opposed to how some university libraries celebrated Google's announcement of its Book Search Project in 2004 because now they would not have to spend money to get digital files of their books, scientists who work on the Genome stood up and organized. ...We lack only one thing: the political will to fight for a great and noble information system -- a global digital library. I'm not talking about the haphazard rush we've seen to date to digitize the stacks of major research libraries. Nor a commercial venture like Google's. I'm proposing what I call the "Human Knowledge Project".... What I mean is a truly global digital library. To generate support for that, we need to identify the political and legal constraints, as well as articulate the payoffs.
- Creating a digital public library without Google's money, By Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times (March 25, 2011). The Google books case now looks like a salvage operation for the dream of a digital library. ...Judge Chin's decision forces us -- or allows us-- to ponder the dream of a digital library without ceding our future to Google.
Government-recorded Hearings Now Being Added to C-SPAN
Carl Malamud was instrumental in getting more videos recorded by the Congressional committees themselves released to C-SPAN.
- Government-recorded Hearings Now Being Added to the Video Library C-SPAN Video Library Blog (March 18, 2011). "The C-SPAN Video Library now contains committee hearings produced by House and Senate committees. C-SPAN can only record a limited number of committees every day. However, a number of House and Senate committees have installed their own equipment to webcast their committee proceedings. These webcasts are now scattered across House and Senate committee websites or not available at all. In order to enhance the offerings of the C-SPAN Video Library and to consolidate these hearings in one place, we are importing government produced committee video into the Video Library."
A last post on GBS
There is so much coming out about the Google Book Settlement court decision that it seems redundant now to repost links here on FGI. I did think it might be useful to weed through so many and post a few highlights here and that's what I have been trying to do (here and here and here and here). Even though most of the GBS controversy is over copyrighted materials and most government information is not copyrighted, I believe that this issue is relevant to government information. That relevance relates to who will control information access and how we will build our digital libraries. The Settlement and the trends it was promoting were not good for the public, for privacy of reading, or for libraries. As google relentlessly blocked full access to most scanned government publications, the HathiTrust made most of those same publications publicly available. The press has repeatedly referred to what google was building as a "library" and continues to do so now, even though the judge explicitly said it was not ("The Google Book Search initiative envisioned in the [agreement] is not a library... It is instead a complex and large-scale commercial enterprise in which Google -- and Google alone -- will obtain a license to sell millions of books for decades to come.") Google transformed what it originally described as indexing (in the same way that it indexes web-pages) -- and therefore fair use, into a giant bookstore in which it would sell access to individuals and sell and limit access to libraries. What happens next may turn those trends around and give us a better chance of going beyond google's avowed policy of making money without doing evil, to a more enlighted policy of actually doing good for our communities. In that spirit, here are a few more links on the GBS decision.
- The Google Books Settlement: Where Things Stand, and Some Suggestions for What’s Next, by David Crotty, Scholarly Kitchen (Mar 24, 2011).
- Google Book Settlement -- Opponents 1, Google 0, by Rick Anderson, Scholarly Kitchen (Mar 23, 2011).
- Inside Judge Chin's Opinion, by James Grimmelmann, The Laboratorium (March 22, 2011).
- Google Book Settlement Rejected: Press Review, Comments, and Resources, By Gary Price, INFOdocket [updated link]
- Google Books Decision: "The Privacy Concerns are Real", by Cindy Cohn, EFF, (March 22, 2011).