Quick Path to Legacy Digitization via Google Print?
Could the Google Print project be a fast track to digitizing the so-called legacy collection of Government Information? That's a thought that occurred to me while reading Joy Weese Moll's excellent summary of a Google Print presentation at the ACRL conference in the May 2005 issue of Walt Crawford's Cites and Insights. Ms. Moll quotes John Price Wilkin from the University of Michigan library on how Google Print works for them: John Price Wilkin, from the University of Michigan, began his presentation by stating, “Google has been a fantastic partner.†He confirmed that Google is using nondestructive methods of digitizing and that UM retains both the physical book and a digital copy, a preservation surrogate, of each book. Wilkin believes the primary responsibility of the library is to be the long term curator of the physical and digital material. The University gets a digital copy, identified by barcode. The scan is 600 dpi for print and 300 dpi for color/grayscale. The library specified the naming convention. The files have Optical Character Recognition. The quality is at least as good as what the University of Michigan had been doing for years on their digitization projects. Continue reading
Congress Considers PATRIOT Expansion Behind Closed Doors
The Senate Intelligence Committee is considering behind doors not only to renew the USA PATRIOT act -- including the infamous section 215 -- but to also expand the FBI's power to demand private records of people who aren't suspected of any crime - *without* a judge's approval. Say No to New PATRIOT I think the reality that USAPA will be continued and expanded confirms that the government documents community needs to challenge and fight against any future government controlled/ centralized government information system as the sole repository of all digital government information. Just imagine if the FBI knocks GPO door asking user information! They will already have it, or the ability to mine it without asking libraries or users' permission. Continue reading
A trend in libraries that is not limited to government documents
In her published remarks at the Spring 2005 Depository Library Council meeting, Superintendent of Documents (SuDoc) Judy Russell made this statement towards the end of her remarks: We will continue working with you on an orderly, but accelerated, transition to a digital FDLP. This will continue to cause depository librarians to transform themselves from managers of collections into managers of electronic services, a trend in libraries that is not limited to government documents. Ms. Russell is right that parts of librarianship are forcing librarians "to transform themselves from managers of collections into managers of electronic services." This is especially true in serials. But this seeming throwaway line hides a lot of potentially difficult issues that the Government Printing Office (GPO) MUST address while developing plans for the future. A major trend in serials is moving away from physical collections of journals to subscriptions to massive "big deal" aggregations. In many ways this is a boon to libraries everywhere. For example, Alaska has a statewide EBSCOhost license that gives even the smallest village library access to over 8,000 full text journals, magazines and full text books. Without such a license, no library could afford a fraction of what EBSCOhost can offer. EBSCOhost is really cool and if you don't have it already, you should ask for a trial. Continue reading
Official GPO Spring DLC Proceedings starting to become available
A month after the close of the Spring 2005 DLC Council meeting, the Government Printing Office (GPO) has begun to post its official proceedings at http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/fdlp/pubs/proceedings/05spring. As of May 23, 2005 only two items were available at the official site:
- GPO Update Handout - PDF
- Judy Russell, Superintendent of Documents Remarks of the Superintendent of Documents - PDF
Fingerprinting Library Users
Ill. Library Getting Fingerprint Scanners The Associated Press Friday, May 20, 2005; Washington Post.
NAPERVILLE, Ill. -- Library officials in this suburb west of Chicago have come up with a high-tech solution for keeping unauthorized visitors from using their computers: fingerprint scans. The scanners _ to be installed on 130 library computers this summer _ will verify the identity of computer users.Continue reading