Update: NIH Public Access Mandate

Although I realize this blog is a platform for bringing fellow staff up-to-speed on information gleaned from various meetings and conferences we attend, I wanted to take this opportunity to update everyone on recent Congressional action that, if signed into law, will have significant impact for our campus.

Last week, the Senate passed an appropriations bill that includes language that would strengthen the current NIH Public Access Policy from a request to a mandate, making manuscript archiving in PubMed Central a condition of receiving NIH funding. In July, the House passed a similar bill also stipulating a mandate. Both bills are now in conference to be reconciled before being sent to the President. Unfortunately, due to disagreements over funding, the President has threatened to veto this bill. Although the veto threat is not over the proposed NIH Public Access Mandate, lobbyists are working hard to see that the mandate language is removed altogether. In fact, although they were withdrawn before the final Senate vote, publisher lobbyists were successful in persuading Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) to attach two amendments to the bill that would have rendered the mandate language null.

If this bill becomes law with the mandate provision intact, here is what you need to know:

• The NIH Public Access Mandate would apply to any research article accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal (both traditional and open access journals) that stems from research funded in whole or in part by NIH awards
• Authors would be responsible for ensuring that a copy of their final peer-reviewed manuscript (commonly known as a postprint) is archived in PubMed Central within 12 months of publication
• The mandate would be fully compliant with existing U.S. copyright law, and although it would be wise for our faculty authors to retain their copyrights when publishing, they may still transfer their copyrights to publishers AND archive their postprints in PMC; approx. 70% of publisher policies already enable authors to archive postprints in either institutional or subject repositories; publisher archiving policies may be searched using the SHERPA-RoMEO database
• Approx. 68% of all external research funding at WFUHS in the past five fiscal years came from NIH (this excludes any subcontract awards)
• Currently, voluntary compliance to the NIH Public Access Policy by WFUHS faculty authors is consistent with the national average – around 5%; however, because publishers can also contribute publications to PMC, closer to 10% of WFUHS faculty-authored journal articles are freely accessible in PMC
• In anticipation of a mandate, and to highlight papers already in PMC, a field for the PMCID (the unique identifier assigned to archived articles) has been added to the Faculty Publications input screen in PeopleSoft; by including the PMCID, users who search Fac Pubs will be able to link directly to those articles

Please see the November issue of the SPARC Open Access Newsletter for Peter Suber's recap of the NIH Public Access Policy/Mandate progress to date and explanation of what to expect in the future.

There has been interesting discussion about the NIH Public Access Mandate and its implications on the Liblicense listserv in recent days. You can read the archived discussion that took place in October here, and the ongoing discussion here. As you can imagine, confusion over this mandate and its effects on scholarly publishing is rampant, and debates over the necessity of open/public access mandates are rife with misinformation and misunderstanding. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me.

MAC - Part 4 "Cleaning Up"

There a couple of little things still left to share. The Association of North Carolina Health and Science Librarians' (http://www.rtpnet.org/~anchasl/) reception on Wednesday evening, October 10 was lots of fun. I was the only person out of the group of 20 or so that has ever ridden a camel! Everyone eventually won a prize and then came announcements, like the group's annual meeting on Friday, November 30 in Chapel Hill. Being a history person, it sounds exciting since the group will celebrate its 25th anniversary including a presentation on the history of the medical library as well as honoring past presidents. Margaret Cobb, librarian at Forsyth Medical Center, will wrap up the day.

On Thursday, I was eating again at the Marketing Your Services roundtable discussion hosted by Shannon Jones of Virginia Commonwealth University. The group of 10 shared the different ways that they market their services either in an academic medical or hospital library. I shared our service, if we're still doing it, of delivering public interest magazines to various patient floor lobbies with a simple label on the front that says: Compliments of Coy C. Carpenter Library and Dorothy Carpenter Medical Archives. The hospital librarians especially like this idea as a way to recycle donated magazines. Some ideas I heard about were:
*sending announcements of classes/lectures to departmental listserves (VCU's departments have their own listserves)
*bringing in federal health officials like Center For Disease Control employees for free, targeted classes
*using www.publichealthgrandrounds.unc.edu for continuing education credit courses
*grabbing all the freebies at conferences to share with patrons
*partnering/collaborating with other departments on campus for programs

To wipe it up, I would say I enjoyed the conference. While I don't consider myself a "true" academic medical center librarian, I still felt like I had several things in common with the MAC group and it was nice to network and meet some hospital librarians, including Ms. Cobb. I am glad I had the opportunity to represent Carpenter Library at the conference.

MAC - Part 3 "Awesome Desserts"

My favorite part (desserts are the best part of any meal) of MAC or at least the part where I learned the most was actually on two different days.

On Wednesday, October 10, 2007, Bart Ragon and colleagues from the University of Virginia presented a paper entitled: When a Blog is Not a Blog. Basically, it involved using blog software for other uses. I immediately thought of the Digital Forsyth (www.digitalforsyth.org) website in Wordpress software. Mr. Ragon gave examples of using blog software as an information aggregator, for a room/equipment self-booking system as well as a place for medical students to comment.

Thursday morning, October 11 found me again listening to Mr. Ragon as part of the panel discussion on Web 2.0 technologies. In this panel, Mr. Ragon discussed collaborative tools, such as blogs, wikis and specifically Google Presentation, Zoho online and Sakai - a free, open source product. He also talked about Social Networking like the use of Facebook and Ning by the American Library Association. Perhaps the most interesting names were Moodle and Sloodle which are course management software programs.

The other panelists were Michelle Kraft, newly appointed senior health librarain at the Cleveland Clinic and author of the blog: http://kraftylibrarian.com/, who discussed mash-ups and sharing photographs; and Max Anderson with SOLINET who talked about changing the of colleagues and patrons attitude toward technology as well as obtaining information services support in a larger institution.

I was intrigued the most by Mr. Ragon's comments so I e-mailed him for his PowerPoint presentations which I have placed in the Shared Documents section of Carpetner Library's Sharepoint. I'm sure you could contact Ms. Kraft and Mr. Anderson about their presentations. Meanwhile, enjoy your desserts compliments of Mr. Ragon!

MAC - Part 2 "Lots of Eating"

Wednesday (Oct. 10, 2007) morning breakfast with the exhibitors was only the beginning of what felt like two days of non-stop food in more ways than one. We did manage to actually speak to some of them, like Meredith being shown Diagnosis Consult from MD Consult respresentative.

But after breakfast, Meredith and I meandered through Poster Session I. The list of abstracts as well as some mini-handouts is circulating around the CCCL staff now. Perhaps the one that stuck out for me was East Carolina University because they had several, all of which had a basic design that was eye-catching. Of course, the theme had to do with FOOD. You can read about each poster in the list of abstracts.

The morning also consisted of a National Library of Medicine update from David Gillikin, chief of bibliographic services. I honestly don't remember much of it because it is was mostly information on NLM's For Librarians' webpage, such as the new site search engine and adding Citing Medicine to NCBI Bookshelf. It didn't have a whole lot to do with food either, although I did enjoy my Starbucks Frappucino in the already freezing room.

After a crab cake sandwich for lunch at a local restaurant, we walked briskly back to the hotel to hear some paper presentations. Again, the list of abstracts is circulating with the staff. I was captured by UNC Chapel Hill's "Fast Food for Clinicians: Recipe for Improving Subject Access to Electronic Resources." Since the room was tiny and we arrived late, we were in the hall. I did hear that the health science librarians have created electronic resource pages specific to departments by partnering with the department. It is more of a focused outreach for library liaisons and the difference is the partnering with a member of the department. I had to dig on UNC Health Sciences Library's homepage, but here is the example shown at the presentation:

http://www.hsl.unc.edu/Services/Guides/Anesthesiology.cfm. I liked the RSS feed listing the Current Table of Contents from the Anesthesiology journal. I found this webpage under Special Collections, then More Collections, then More Collections, A to Z.

I'll save the other interesting paper for another post. Now that I'm hungry, I will enjoy my lunch!

MAC - Part 1 - "Nearly a Disaster"

The purpose of me attending the Mid-Atlantic Chapter of the Medical Library Association conference in Baltimore, Md. Oct 9-12, 2007 was to present a poster: The D-Word: Deciding What to Digitize. The actual poster presentation was on Thursday, Oct. 11 during the Technology Symposium.

But, since I'm a linear person, I need to post the events in the order in which they happened! So first up is Dr. Georges C. Benjamin, MD, FACP, FACEP and director of the American Public Health Association. He spoke about the need for disaster preparedness from a public health view. His speech was decent and appropriate for our time but I felt like he had given it many times before and worked in a couple of slides in his PowerPoint to make it appropriate to medical librarians.

The one interesting fact I gathered from it was that medical and hospital libraries can serve as a gathering place/triage location in a disaster because they have space, technology access if equipment is still available and in particular medical and hospital libraries are close if not already in hospitals. Another interesting part of the speech is the American Public Health Association (http://www.apha.org/) is developing a movement for national disaster preparedness, perhaps somewhat late after Hurricane Katrina, but at least the group is exploring it. This association is focusing on preparing for pandemic flu.

To veer off the linear path a bit, the conference also included an update from the National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NN/LM) Southeastern/Atlantic Region and Janice Kelly gave that update on Thursday, Oct. 11. The Regional Libraries of NN/LM (University of Maryland-Baltimore is where the Southeastern library is located) are becoming buddies with another medical library in preparation for a national and/or regional disaster. An example is the Southeastern/Atlantic Region Library's buddy is the University of Washington-Seattle. Ms. Kelly suggested that MAC members start thinking about a buddy library for their libraries.

And finally as a side and very related note, while Ms. Kelly was giving the update of NN/LM and happened to be discussing disaster preparedness, the hotel's alarm system went off and we immediately evacuated the hotel to across the street to the University of Maryland-Baltimore research section of the library. Now can it get any more exciting than that experience? See below for an "evacuation" shot.

No, we did not find out why we had to evacuate but returned out of the chilly weather back to the hotel within 10 minutes and I heard no sirens even though there is a fire department across the street from the Marriott Inner Harbor hotel.

Digital Forsyth Year 2

Dianne, Monica and Mark with some help from Julie continue to plug away in the Digital Forsyth Grant. Year two of the potential three-year grant started July 1 and CCCL is expected to choose, label, scan and catalog 375 images that will help depict the history of Forsyth County.

Year one entailed a lot of learning, setting up equipment, hiring temporary staff and establishing workflows along with completing 189 images, 39 images over the expected number.

Year two will be a year of production. The staff will have help again this year to produce - one person for scanning and entering the information into an Access database and one person for cataloging in EnCompass. While Monica chooses most of the photographs, Dianne is going to be working on various "stories," brief written snapshots of our institution, to be included on the webpage. Mark continues his work with the User Services Committee who hopes to have the initial user web interface launched by the end of August.

Look for Digital Forsyth at the Bookmarks Festival on September 8 and at the NCLA Conference in Hickory on October 18, 2007.

Basic Archives

During the month of June, Monica and I enjoyed learning about basic archives work without leaving our desks!

The American Association for State and Local History offered an online workshop that allowed you to work at your own pace until the deadline on July 6. It also offered two live chat sessions during the course from an experienced archivist and one of the authors of the workshop. After each course, you reviewed it and took a short test or quiz.

The workshop information was not new for me but definitely verified that what I have been doing for seven years is good. Monica, on the other hand, learned tons of new information and she is excited to have a real certificate for completing it.

The workshop was divided into five courses covering the following topics:
Introduction to Archives and Archivists; What Do You Collect and How Do You Collect It; Processing; Housing Your Collections and Access and Outreach.

To summarize, we learned that you need a collection development policy, processing policy/manual, disaster plan, lots of supplies, lots of space for storing and processing and a sense of humor and attention to detail.

For the very-curious-minded colleagues, we have the entire workshop on CD that we would be happy to share.

Copyright Utopia, Day 3 - Technological Alternatives Panel

Transforming Copyright: Technological Alternatives
Kimberly Kelley (moderator), Karen Coyle, Laurence Roth, David Sohn

• DRM (digital rights management) has been market failure because consumers not happy with digital controls
• not all technical protection is bad; some protection is important, useful, needed
• files today will outlive software needed to open them
• technology does fail: not if, but when
• when technology fails in regard to DRM, there is nothing that can be done
• users need to explicitly know what they can and cannot do under DRM of each individual file; shouldn't have to discover limitations when they are stopped trying to do something not permissible
• we should be informing people every time they access something of the copyright that applies: holder, date enacted, uses permitted
• possibly include copyright in metadata of MARC records
• DRM likely to remain part of copyright landscape
• if public understands DRM, they will exert pressure on DRM developers for more choice and flexibility
• DRM developers need to contribute by making infringement unattractive not technologically impossible
• DRM has collateral impact: privacy - data collection questions; computer security - are necessary downloads/installations safe
• DRM must have transparency/disclosure, both initial and ongoing
• not all DRM systems raise problems in all areas
• if more files are available DRM-free (iTunes songs), will public have enough information to make informed decisions?
• similar to DRM are digital watermarks
• almost all TV broadcasts have digital watermarks
• Photoshop has digital watermarking capability
• watermarks provide persistent digital identity with embedded metadata defining origin, use permissions
• watermarks can be made resistant to standard content processing techniques
• watermarks used for copyright communication, copy protection, monitoring, filtering/classification, authentication/identity, media serialization & tracking, asset/content management, rights management, remote triggering, linking/ecommerce
• digital watermarks similar to automobile VIN
• work as compliments to DRM
• could possibly help identify data leaks
• would help in identification of future born-digital orphan works
• ancillary copyright violations could (and should) be accounted for by digital watermarking (accidentally filming Disney movie in background of home video of child's birthday party)

Evidence-Based Library/Info Practice Meeting

This was a different kind of meeting for me, used to MAC and MLA. It was a small meeting (230 participants) and very international in flavor. It also included lots of different kinds of librarians, not just medical librarians. It was co-sponsored by the EBLIP guru Andrew Booth and the Library School at UNC and held in Research Triangle Park. I wondered what the foreign librarians found to do in the RTP when the meeting wasn't taking them out in buses. Since the airport is across I-40 and RTP is composed of businesses, there was only a Gold's Gym and a walking trail as destinations in RTP without a rental car. Rochelle and I joined the meeting halfway through and stayed for CE classes. The meeting focused on library research, how to make it better, how to fit it in, how to get it published, how to evaluate it. I attended the debate on whether EBLibrarianship was useful/necessary by Scott Pluchak and Andrew Booth. This talk and the following discussion was fairly contentious. I went to sessions where librarians presented their research on teaching, including Connie Schardt who studied a course taught locally and as a distance ed class. The final luncheon had several library heads discussing the importance of EB research in running libraries. These included a small special library, Duke Med library, NCSU library, a school library professor, and a state library. The CE class I took, on critically appraising library research/articles, was one of the best CEs I ever taken, probably due to the knowledge and personality of the instructor who was from Newfoundland.

Copyright Utopia, Day 3 - Licensing Panel

Licensing and the Commons as Copyright Alternatives
Kimberly Bonner (moderator), Mike Carroll, Solveig Singleton, Elizabeth Winston

Cautionary/negative view (Elizabeth Winston):

• copyright does not fit all takers - some want tighter controls, others want fewer
• legislation restricts copyright holders' rights after the first sale, but licensing enables holders to retain control
• using licenses to transfer copyrights (retaining titles) risks monopolization [*I personally believe such risks are minimal*]
• one legitimate justification for use of license does not automatically justify licensing rather than transferring, as other user rights may be unnecessarily corroded

Supportive view (Mike Carroll):

• goal of Creative Commons is to get out of normal copyright allowances by licensing legal sharing of creative, scientific & educational materials
• one size does not fit all but standards are nonetheless necessary
• CC provides standardization in licensing
• CC inspired by Open Source movement; idea born in 2001, licenses released 2002
• each of the 6 possible licenses have three versions: metadata, human readable, legal
• CC licenses do not apply only to digital works; try to be medium-neutral
• have been used on blogs, photos, research articles, teaching materials, music, film, books
• CC licenses have role to play in domain where researchers just want credit/prestige for their work, not monetary compensation
• growth in use of CC licenses impressive (measured by link backs): Dec. 2003=1 million; Dec. 2004=5 million; June 2005=12 million; June 2006=145 million [*when these numbers where shared the person sitting beside me - a top administrator with the Copyright Clearance Center - softly exclaimed "Wow"*]

Cautionary/positive view (Solveig Singleton):

• licensing may not solve copyright problems
• trade creates wealth, voluntary licenses are trade, so both parties are better off, both benefit
• compulsory licensing, however, cuts into benefits; top-down, non-negotiable, one side raw deal
• voluntary licensing is form of Utopia but requires active participation
• nevertheless, there are problems with voluntary licensing: fragmentation (think of all the issues with music: composer, performer, producer, etc.); getting around public legislation (DRM); public legislation itself (criminalization of violations)
• the need to get around public legislation and the extent of public legislation are themselves symptoms of a collapse of copyright enforcement in the digital landscape, an issue which none of the licensing options address
• it is worth thinking hard, creatively about Congressional-level addressing of license fragmentation and non-enforceability issues in technological world
• think "hatless": when thinking about how to solve copyright problems, we need to take off the multiple hats we wear (those of consumer, producer)
• private licensing agreements are worthwhile experiments that need to go forward

Copyright Utopia, Day 3 - Legislative Panel

Tweaking Copyright: Legislative Alternatives
Kimberly Bonner (moderator), Miriam Nisbet, Robert Samors, Gigi Sohn

• 110th Congress (current term) is unusually quiet on copyright, although 3 of the 4 copyright reform bills/initiatives are positive
• big copyright issues are currently in the courts, hence affecting the actions of Congress
• also slower due to shift from Republican majority to Democrats, as well as focus on judicial system issues (fired lawyers), FBI examination, & patent reform bill
• Democrats have tended to be more friendly to Hollywood (the land of big donors) by protecting copyrights
• notion of only one type of copyright holder no longer holds with rising among of user-generated content
• the current big danger is not potential Congressional action but action from the copyright office: some believe the office is over-reaching its role to make policy pronouncements, believing duty is to push back changing tide of copyright control in defense of traditional copyright holders; as an office, the mission is to serve the people, which includes copyright holders of participatory media
• reforms are needed in areas covering orphan works, DMCA, DRM notices, licensing that permits YouTube posting without fear of notice-and-takedown, limiting statutory damages
• although such reforms are not possible in the short term, they might be in long term
• H.R. 1201: introduced in late February; would amend DMCA to add relief to DRM breaking prohibition in legitimate circumstances such as fair use, educational uses, and library/archives preservation (all currently illegal)
• hoping to see orphan works (works whose copyright holder cannot be identified/located) bills in both House and Senate; would allow for use of orphan works without risk of statutory damages if good faith search does not locate copyright owner
• study group examining possible changes to Section 108 (library/archive specific section); section is out-of-sync with digital age in terms of copying guidelines (both preservation and personal use), ILL
• librarians have an important role to play in copyright reform, either by individually contacting Congressional representatives or by identifying our institution's government relations/Congressional liaison person
• imperative that faculty and students understand copyright, so hold copyright education campaigns on campus; doesn't necessarily have to be clever but needs to be sustained
• work to have copyright added to Faculty Senate and institutional agendas
• think about copyright reform less as an economic issue and more as an educational mission
• clearly stipulate self-interest for universities, faculty, students

Copyright Utopia, Day 2 - International Panel

International Approaches
Kimberly Bonner (moderator), Susan Anthony, Olufunmilayo Arewa, Matthew Skelton

This panel session basically provided a peak at other countries' approaches to copyright and fair use, and served primarily to emphasize how different US copyright law is from other Berne Convention member countries, especially with regard to fair use. Several European countries, including Germany and France, use private copying levies as an exception to copyright holders' exclusive reproduction rights. These levies are charged to manufactures of machines and data storage devices used to make copies of copyright-protected materials. Copyright holders then use an intermediary organization for remuneration with governments to recover levies. Although the US fair use doctrine does allow for some private copying, it is not as permissive as private copying levies.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) recently released a paper/statement on participatory media. Participatory media or UCC (user created content) does not apply/cover consumptive entertainment. UCC - blogs, wikis, mashups, social networking sites - currently dominated by young, male creators. Making an entire copy of anything is virtually never fair; good rule of thumb? Maybe...

Culture by definition is shared. US fair use law is atypical in context of other international copyright laws. The Berne Convention's education exemption is neither transparent or apparent, so lots of countries don't use it. The debate between producers and users of copyrighted materials plays out in different ways internationally, but still plays out.

Copyright Utopia, Day 2 - Open Access Panel Discussion

Closed is Not Necessarily the Opposite of Open: Open Access Initiatives
Paul Jaeger (moderator), Ann Bartow, Brian Crawford, Heather Joseph, Denise Troll Covey

This session was remarkably hostile, and unfortunately, given the complexity of the topic, did little to clarify the issue at hand: Open Access and its potential for radical (and in my opinion, greatly needed) change in the scholarly communications arena. While I don't claim to be an OA expert, I do feel that I have a solid understanding of the principles and issues, and this session made me anxious and frustrated as I realized that people without my background were undoubtedly more confused afterward than before we even began. Despite Heather Joseph's "modern interpretive copyright dance," the session was truly characterized by the following phrases (supplied by panelists, not audience): "pit bull", "fired up", "drank a bottle of Tabasco." Nevertheless, there were good points made, which I share below.

• faculty are more concerned with what their peers are doing with OA journals, not about the dysfunction in scholarly communications or serials pricing
• if everyone waits to see what their peers do (chicken & egg issue), then nothing will change!
• to get faculty to go green, must understand current culture in order to change it
• advancement & stature in field are key issues for faculty, not public access; faculty don't understand that there is an access issue...until you cancel journals
• if ILL changes to strict document delivery (current section 108 review) then faculty will likely become interested in publicly accessible materials
• lobby for OA resolution to be adopted by Faculty Senate
• publishing agreements are contracts, and contracts are negotiable
• what is in it for individual researchers? what are the carrots?
• only through use of research findings by others is research impact maximized

Copyright Utopia, Day 2 - Keynote & Panel Session

Utopian Visions of Copyright: Tweak, Transform or Opt-out
William "Terry" Fisher, Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Harvard

Copyright utopia would include...

• creators are fairly compensated
• opportunities to engage in creativity are widespread (semiotic democracy)
• cultural diversity
• all persons have ready access to ideas, information and entertainment
• all persons have access to rich, empowering, continuing education

5 ways current copyright system impedes this Utopian vision - and possible cures...

• proliferation of protected, unregistered works - creates unnecessary obstacles for use & reuse; Creative Commons license is a cure already in place that doesn't require legal changes
• impediments to education - outmoded/clumsy educational exemptions; ambiguity of fair use; DMCA applied to education hurts film studies; overly cautious gatekeepers (universities, publishers, insurers); cure by expansion of exemptions
• impediments to semiotic democracy - modified films, mashups, amateur webcasting currently not permitted; cures include modifying fair use for greater latitude for transformative works & less latitude for consumptive works, define "derivative work" more narrowly or eliminate altogether, and resist expansion of rights of integrity
• impediments to search tools - cures include changing fair use to shield innovative tools such as Google Books or change default rule to opt-out (example: notice-and-takedown policy)
• crisis in entertainment industry - heightened by technological destabilization; cures include strengthening intellectual property rights, reinforcing self-help strategies, an alternative compensation system, or a renewed entertainment ecology
• modest reforms, even some without required changes to existing law, are obviously necessary

Panel Session Response
Kimberly Kelley (moderator), Patricia Aufderheide, Alec French, Jim Gibson, Tracy Mitrano

• universities traditionally resist critical assessment of copyright, which is converse to established educational practices, and simply state "this is wrong, end of discussion" - this needs to change if we're going to foster engagement and understanding in students, faculty
• copyright is intended to promote continued creation of culture; to promote progress of science & useful arts - need to remember this!

Copyright Utopia, Day 1 - Keynote

Copyright Utopia: YouTube and the DMCA's Silver Lining?
Fred Von Lohmann, Electronic Frontier Foundation

• Participatory media (user-generated content) creates lots of copyright questions
• YouTube synonymous to new, emerging media form
• Political satire: "This land is your land..." Bush/Kerry video from 2004; Obama/Clinton 1984 video (take off on Apple's 1984 Super Bowl ad unveiling Macintosh computers) from 2007
• Mashups: movie trailer mashups such as "Brokeback to the Future"; "Experiment in Sound" audio & video mashup
• Parody: MoveOn.org's parody of Colbert Report was removed from YouTube after Viacom copyright complaint, which was actually falsely asserted...video back on YouTube; Disney copyright video from Stanford
• Oddities: 8 minute "Star Wars" silent movie
• The people's archive: old TV ads from the 1970s "archived" on YouTube
• When do you ask the copyright questions in regard to this emergent media?
• Because this content reaches audience first, we're able to have this debate
• DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act, 1998) actually made user-upload sites possible by way of copyright violation exemption for host sites, so long as the offensive material is removed when requested (safe harbor provisions provided notice-and-takedown policy)
• Gatekeepers: traditional intermediaries (TV, radio, etc.) conservative with regard to copyright, so if material is questionable, it doesn't go out
• Bouncers: OSPs (online service providers) exempt from violations under DMCA safe harbors; everything is welcome but it'll be thrown out if getting out-of-control
• Thanks to DMCA, finally getting to see all the fair uses we deserve to see
• It isn't that copyright is not being violated - it probably is - but for the most part, no one cares
• However, the creation made possible under DMCA threatened by lawsuits, mechanized censorship (filtering technologies), DRM (digital rights management)
• DMCA safe harbors fight is fight for a *public* remix culture; essentially, a fight for fair use and free expression; this culture will continue to happen regardless but risks being driven underground
• Transformative works risk becoming collateral damage in fight against actual violations
• Things to think about in higher ed: 1) think DMCA not fair use (universities are OSPs not copy providers; have notice-and-takedown procedures; distribute links rather than copies); 2) build tools not collections (public does a better job of building archive of pop culture than any institution could so focus on ways to assist not control)

Copyright Utopia, Day 1 - Preconference

The 7th annual Center for Intellectual Property (CIP), University of Maryland University College, symposium - Copyright Utopia: Alternative Visions, Methods, and Policies - got off to a great start yesterday (Monday) afternoon with a 4-hour preconference: "Copyright 101." Being relatively new to copyright, I found this introduction helpful, particularly as the presenter, Kenneth Crews, welcomed audience members' questions and real life circumstances, providing us with a practical introduction. Since my notes from this session are lengthy and likely not of exhilarating interest to most (although *very* important to understand), I'll simply recap the highlights...

• fun of copyright is figuring out rules as they apply to our situation
• copyright and fair use are two different worlds (albeit overlapping); before you can address fair use, you first must determine existence of copyright
• copyright automatically applies to original, tangible fixed medium works, therefore in essence we are all copyright holders
• it doesn't take much to be deemed "creative" with regard to copyright
• stay away from joint copyright ownership if possible
• many types of uses desired not possible under exceptions (sections 107-122 of copyright law), so there are several options: alter use to meet exception; get permission; examine if use falls under "fair use" doctrine
• fair use "protections" such as word counts, 10%, 30 seconds, spontaneity not codified in law, only hammered out in guidelines established between libraries, higher ed institutions, publishers; *get rid of this line of thinking, especially with regard to institutional copyright policies*
• keep institutional copyright policies simple and general
• if you can avoid copyright questions altogether, do so!

MLA 2007 Tuesday, May 21

Our poster presentation went well. Rochelle and I got the poster up without difficulty and several people stopped and picked up our handouts and asked questions. I got to walk around with my green "Presenters" ribbon for the entire conference and look cool.

I am blogged out... I went to a couple of other sessions but I am completely 'typed' out so over and out...

Everyone have a great Memorial Day weekend and post comments!!!

MLA 2007 Tuesday, May 21

Evaluative Measures for Resource Quality Beyond the Impact Factor
Eugene Garfield spoke about impact factors and Bob Schaufreider of MPS Technologies spoke about "making sense of your usage statistics". I didn't understand anything. The moderator listed some papers and web sites that seemed to be of interest:

"Measuring Journals" by John Ewing in Notices of the AMS, Octo. 2006

UKSG Usage Factor http://www.uksg.org/usagefactors

Bergstrom McAfee "cost per citation" site <> couldn't write fast enough

Eigenfactor Ranking

MLA 2007 Tuesday, May 21

Dynamed Sunrise Seminar 7 AM AGAIN!!!
Excellent presentation by Dynamed's creator and editor-in-chief Brian Alpert, M.D. who explained how evidence is evaluated and updated. Over 500 journals and the Cochrane Reports are monitored cover-to-cover by the Dynamed staff. New features include the Medline search strategies that are available for all new and all updated content. The AHFS Drug Information Essentials textbook is being added by the end of 2007. Full text links to all EBSCOHOST databases are now available. 1/2 CE credit is available for any question that a physician can answer using Dynamed. An Electronic Integrator Toolkit allows Dynamed info to be accessed through the Electronic Medical Record.

MLA 2007 Monday, May 21

Two other presentations were interesting but I don't have much to say about them.

Millenials Find Treasure in the Library was a description of an orientation that the Weill Cornell librarians created for incoming MD students. New students met at the library where they were given a "treasure Map" of the Library and they had to find their ways to various locations within the library and on the library's web pages and through the use of rhyming clues find the answer to the clue. The member of the first team to find all of the clues got a USB Memory Stick as a prize. It turned out to be a fun way of introducing the students to the library even if things were a little hectic during the actual hunt!

Books to Bedside is a program from the SUNY Upstate Medical Library (in conjunction with the Onondaga County Public Library system to deliver reading materials to the patient's bedside utilizing the library staff and hospital volunteers. Some problems encountered along the way: patient rooms too small to get the book cart in so that a patient couldn't browse the selection, some patients too ill, library staff unfamiliar with public library online library system (since many patients were not registered public library users), lots of books disappearing; but the patients who utilized the service were very happy with it and the volunteers were very enthusiastic about participating in the program.

MLA 2007 Monday, May 21

Curriculum Integration - University of Nevada School of Medicine
presentation from Terry Henner on their program to integrate library resources into the medical school's curriculum. Their med school's program is similar to ours with a problem-based learning structure where student meet in small groups on Monday and Friday. In the Monday session they are introduced to a new case and they have to determine what their learning objectives are and then report and discuss their findings in their Friday afternoon session.

The Library reviews all cases for "teachable" moments and then establishes links to library resources and the librarians act as a resource to the faculty facilitators for each group.

The Library's objectives for this program is to:
a. introduce the students to a broad array of digital resources
b. guide students in their selection of resources
c. teach resource specific search mechanisms
d. without impeding the group process

There were pros: students found answers, they felt more confident in finding information, and the process led to them requesting more lectures to go into more depth on some of the information they pulled up in their searches. The cons were that some students felt that going online in the small groups impeded their discussion time, students got confused with what resources to chose since there are many and several of them focused on the same kinds of materials, and three, it can't be demonstrated that by the end of their fourth year the students had retained much of the information on searching and library resources they received in their first and second years.

MLA 2007 Monday, May 21

Having a Librarian in the OR area
presented by Denise Hersey from Cushing/Whitney Library of Yale University
Denise is a liaison to the Anesthesiology Department and when it was suggested to her that she should interact with anesthesiologist residents she set up space in their lounge area with a laptop and a pda. The first week was awkward but then residents started asking her about her pda and what stuff they had access to which gave her an opening to introduce library resources and services. Eventually, anesthesiologists went from being infrequent to non-existent library users to being one of the library's biggest user groups. Denise started out spending 4-6 hours a week there but now most of her clients contact her so she spends less time in the OR. She has been invited by the Chairman of the Department to be a member of the interview committee for prospective new residents. Denise typically spend a great deal of time doing literature searches, teaching RefWorks and Endnote , and demonstrating PDA resources.

Some of her suggestions on how to start and run such a program were:

1. Captivate your audience
a. signs
b. set hours
c. establish a listerv
d. advertise through Grand Rounds

2. Establish what you will need in the way of equipment

3. Establish where you should be physically

4. Provide 0ne-on-one consultations

5. Create a web site for the department

My Idea (this is for you Julie) is why not offer to create Sharepoint sites for various depts' residency programs for their Journal Club articles.

MLA 2007 Monday, May 21

Sunrise Seminar 7 AM !!!! EBSCOHOST CINAHL Demonstration

EBSCOHOST hosted a demo of their CINAHL databases(I believe we currently get access to the "basic" CINAHL from NCLIVE but not CINAHL with full text.) CINAHL Full Text has 579 full text journals but some of them are embargoed for up to twelve months by the publishers. CINAHL has also started indexing most journals cover-to-cover rather than selectively and they are also indexing abstracts from proceedings. 230 new titles have been added over the past two years.

EBSCOHOST has added three new features:
PreCINAHL
- immediate TOC for 800+ Nursing and Allied Health journals
- links to full text also available from these TOCs
- can be searched simultaneously with CINAHL

Searchable Cited References
- 1,147 (800 of this are Nursing Journals) journals from 2000 to the present
- this number is compared to 66 Nursing Journals indexed in ISI's WOS

both of these features are available free with either CINAHL subscription

Nursing Reference Center
- this will be in beta testing later this summer
- it will have 2200 care sheets and lessons
- 700+ legal cases
- 300+ research instruments
- 300+ CEU modules

this looks promising and might be something for our nurses to look at when more information is available about pricing.

MLA 2007 Sunday, May 20

I attended a presentation by the Portico people. Portico is a not-for proft off shoot of JSTOR and their reason for being is to provide an archive of electronic materials that will exist as a complete repository for participating publishers of all digital content published on the web. Portico collects all of the digital content the publisher makes available to them and strips away all extraneous "content" such as formatting, preserving only the text and graphics relating to the text for permanent archiving. Participating libraries who agree to "contribute " dollars will then have access to this content if the publisher should cease to exist, if the publisher names Portico as the sole archiver, or if the library's own collections are destroyed [see Katrina] in which event a participating library will be able to "link" their users to this content. Currently 35 publishers are participating with a majority of those 35 publishers naming Porticio as the sole archiver. Over 340 libraries are also participating including our very own ZSR. Participating libraries are asked to make an annual Archive Support payment that is based upon that library's total Library Materials Expenditures. I can't evaluate the feasibility of this program for us but Molly B is well-acquainted with this program and has done an evaluation for us. I can only report that it seems that Portico is picking up participants but there seems to be no "critical mass" developing on whether Portico's approach will dominate in field with other players like Locks (sic), etc.

State of the State

STATE OF THE STATE: SCHOLARLY COMMUNICATION IN NORTH CAROLINA
APRIL 27, 2007 – ELLIOTT UNIVERSITY CENTER, UNCG, GREENSBORO
SPONSOR: COLLEGE & UNIVERSITY SECTION OF THE NC LIBRARY ASSOCIATION

Scholarly Communications: An Introduction – Rosann Bazirjian, UNCG
· Scholarly journal publishers are charging more for electronic than print, even though cost of creation may be less
· SC needs to be understood not only as a way to solve the serials crisis for libraries, but also as a way to aid dissemination of research
· The promotion & tenure process – requirement of publishing in high impact journals – perpetuates the continuation of the crisis
· “Author pays” OA models seen as vanity presses
· Plagiarism fears cloud understanding of OA, despite the fact that copyright/IP violations happen within the traditional publishing structure
· Simple continuation of the existing publishing model is ill-advised as it gives publishers the right to prohibit use, even by authors themselves
· Institutional repositories (IRs) are part of the solution to the SC crisis; also demonstrate university’s value, quality to the world at largeIR=capture, collect, preserve

The ABC’s of Scholarly Communicaiton – Cat Saleeby McDowell, UNCG
· Why a crisis?:
o Loss of access to scholarly research literature due to rising prices and subsequent fewer subscriptions
o Reliance on core publications entrenched in tenure
o Impact factors emphasize the quality of the journal title, NOT the quality of the articles (assume articles must be good if in certain journals)
o US anti-trust laws lax on publishers, so lots of big fish eating little fish mergers
o Libraries committing more money to fewer publishers
· Open Access (OA)=immediate, free, online, unrestricted
· Catalog OA journals and include titles in subject guides one way to promote
· Although IRs are part of the answer, they should not be undertaken lightly
· Average startup cost of IRs $182,000, mean is $45,000; includes salary of staff, server cost, learning time, training, etc.
· 9 largest US IRs at institutions in the top 100 colleges/universities in the nation
· Only 13% of IRs’ faculty scholarship (which accounts for only 37% of total) is peer-reviewed
· Bring out the dollar signs when educating administrators
· Target “movers & shakers” among faculty, as well as those serving as editors
· “Sneak” into another meeting to sharing OA/IR information with faculty
· Have workshop on publishing as a whole, with part devoted to OA, for junior faculty, post docs, grad students
· Common resistance to OA/IR:
o Invested in traditional publishing model (tenure)
o Peer-review concerns
o Journal impact factors
o Disciplinary vs. institutional repositories (faculty more committed to subject than institution)
o Plagiarism
· Research showed that if IRs went live without 100-200 items, it was hard to grow and prove need

Implementing an Institutional Repository: Decisions and Experiences – Stephen Westman, UNCC
· Building an IR is a large-scale, complex project
· Define what you mean by “stewardship” of digital materials at the beginning
· Determine type of structure desired: document management system vs. scholarly repository
· Plan, plan, plan!
· Make sure you have explicit buy-in and commitment for ongoing support
· Do not underestimate importance of marketing and PR
· Keep project faculty-focused; let them feel ownership
· Tie to faculty benefits (what’s in it for them?):
o Stable, long-term access and preservation with permanent URL
o Increased circulation, hence increased citations (show how many times item has been downloaded) o Ability to do full text searching
· Have an elevator speech prepared
· Communicate early and often (should be two-way)
· Future migration costs need to be thought about, even thought this likely won’t be an issue in near future

Care about Your Copyrights – Peggy Hoon, NCSU
· Technologies have forced copyright onto center stage
· Does institution have policy that addresses copyright ownership? Most allow faculty to retain copyright
· Intellectual property (IP) is an individual’s most valuable asset; for researchers, this is what they live and train for
· Copyright holder is in the driver’s seat with respect to how work can be accessed and used
· Copyright transfers must be in writing and signed
· Copyright is actually a bundle of rights:
o Reproduction
o Modification
o Distribution
o Public performance
o Public display
o Public performance of sound recording by digital transmission
· If authors sign away all copyright, they will likely experience future limitations
· Authors can:
o Completely transfer copyright
o Transfer but retain some rights for self and/or institution
o Keep copyright and only license to other entity
· Advice has shifted from “keep your copyright” to “keep the rights you need, as many as you can, for as many people as you can”
o Less threatening for publishers
o Faculty not responsible for granting use permissions; publishers have copyright and therefore field such requests
· Don’t be afraid to negotiate – the publisher is obviously interested in the work

Panel Discussion – Rebecca Kemp, UNCW (moderator); Allan Scherlen, ASU; Evelyn Council, FSU; Kate McGraw, UNC; Kevin Smith, Duke; Peter Fritzler, UNCW
· Author addendum, even if pushed back, leave open possibility for negotiation
· Addendum at least get authors to understand copyright issues; way to get faculty – and publishers – thinking about copyright and future use
· UNC established OA fund to supply authors with money to pay publishing fees; not highly used but good marketing tool; excludes authors whose grant award provides publication fee coverage
· “Squeeky wheel”, “under the table” publishing agreements brought out by publishers when authors push for rights retention
· Grad students a better audience than faculty for OA, IR, copyright retention
· UNCW librarians targeted NIH researchers to jointly learn how PubMed Central works
· Easier inroads with individual, small groups, departmental groups of faculty
· Highlight early adopters
· Start at individual-level interest (appeal point)
· IR provides snapshot of what the institution can offer to the world
· Establish identity for IR – let this be a choice that is made, not one dictated by what happens as it evolves

Expanding publishing impact

Publishing choices: Know your rights and expand your impact!
April 25, 2007
UNC Health Sciences Library, Chapel Hill, NC
Guest speaker: Heather Joseph, Director, SPARC
Panelists: Sarah Michalak (moderator), Deborah Gerhardt, Julia Cleaver, Brad Hemminger

• Open Access (OA) should be understood as a vision, not a specific model
• Goal of OA is to lift barriers to both access and use
• In paper world, distribution was a value added service of journal publishers; not so in digital world
• Of great value to researchers is OA's advantage in research impact: wider audience=more impact
• OA not only about seeing and reading, but about using articles/research in new ways
• Number of OA journals (in DOAJ) rose 25% in 2006!
• When launching an institutional repository, must consider what an OA repository means for the campus community, institution...
• Copyright is "showered" on authors as they write and is theirs alone until they sign it away
• $19billion publishing industry in 2006
• Dissemination is becoming understood as an essential, inseparable process of research
• Copyright is a default in our government; even without filing for official registration, authors have very strong rights/protections, including the right to make derivatives
• T. Brody, Southampton Univ., has shown that self-archiving positively increases citation impact (50-250%)
• "You don't ask, you don't get": authors need to think about how they might want to use their work in the future and tell publishers upfront
• Although UNC (and several other institutions) created an institutional author addendum for authors to attach when signing publishing contracts to only share non-exclusive copy right with publishers, there is a risk that if the market is flooded with too many variations, publishers will reject them en masse, simply because it is too much work sifting through them all; a better route will likely be to either stipulate upfront what rights the author wishes to retain, or to use generic addendum such as that provided by SPARC or the Science Commons Scholar's Copyright Addendum Engine

Keynote Sessions

Opening Session Keynote, Thursday March 29: Michael Eric Dyson
· Librarians potentially have greater responsibility in enhancing students’ education than classroom teachers might because we are a constant figure from one academic year to the next
· Librarians are not just preservers of information, we are liberators of information; we must disseminate information when, where, and to whom it is needed
· We need to embrace our culture as it is and teach from the vantage point of legitimacy and inclusion: Shakespeare alongside Tupac; rappers are highly literate individuals (have to be in order to string together elaborate lyrics that not only make sense but rhyme!) and if they are who our students will connect to, use them as examples
· Recognize that it isn’t a lack of desire to learn, so much as a lack of accessibility

Keynote Luncheon, Friday March 30: John Waters
While much of John Waters’ speech reflected his classically off-color style (as it should), and perhaps shouldn’t be shared on our professional blog, I’m noting the highlights here – but I’ll be happy to give you a full recap if you like!
· Libraries are all about free, but perhaps we should change that mantra: make people pay to get *out* of the library
· We have to make books cool again; translate classics into Ebonics if that will connect with young people
· It’s impossible to commit a crime while reading a book: promoting literacy/libraries might curb violence
· Be provocative and you’ll attract new, younger users

Closing Session Keynote, Sunday April 1: Nina Totenberg
· The role of reporters getting to and disseminating information in our democratic society is changing
· The ship of State is the only one that leaks from the top
· Government’s job is to keep secrets; journalists’ job is to find them out
· Leaking information cannot be a one way street that only benefits the government; without leaks, the public wouldn’t know about a lot of important events/issues in history (Watergate)
· In life, not everyone is a diligent as librarians
· Fears that people only read what they agree with because the amount of information that we should be reading growing exponentially
· Loss of exposure to articles you *think* you aren’t interested in reading is the greatest detriment to reading newspapers online and not by physically turning pages

Cruise to Success (Panel Session)

Cruise to Success: How to Steer Your Way through the Murky Waters of Marketing Your Library
Teresa DeLoach, Reference Librarian, University of Texas-Dallas; Loreen Phillips, Head of Information Literacy Services and Outreach, University of Texas-Dallas

· Marketing activities fall under the umbrella of instruction, outreach and reference
· Libraries need to always remind their campus communities of what we do
· Marketing is communication, relationship nurturing
· Two main kinds of marketing:
Covert – simple brand recognition
Overt – want people to remember product and services, not merely logo
· Successful marketing strategies begin by identifying the basic thing we want our users to remember
· No one else will market the library except us
· SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) helpful in understanding environment/culture, but also generates data useful in funding requests
· Use logo, phone number/contact info on anything you distribute to faculty, staff and students
· Pencils, pens and highlighters splash library name all over campus quickly and easily
· Keep statistics for every marketing endeavor (i.e., how many pens were distributed/taken)
· Distribute different bookmarks highlighting different things from general (hours, URL, etc.) to specific (collections, services) to directly applicable (LC,NLM classification)
· Xyron machine (popular in scrapbooking) can be used for making bookmarks, magnets, postcards and business cards in house with less expense
· Catchy phrases, big words grab attention; share details in smaller font (FREE RESEARCH PAPER help)
· Create posters in various styles, advertising various library services, events
· Use table tends within library to advertise new products (databases, journals, bibliographic management software, PDA resource, etc.)
· Use business card-size informational ads at public service desks for distribution alongside bookmarks
· Stock branded pens, pencils, erasers, highlighters at public service desks for distribution to students without expectation of return
· Have different style pens for different user groups: nicer pens for faculty and staff, cheap ones for students
· Try different things; even if they don’t work, at least you tried
· Don’t market only when you have specific marketing events (i.e., info fairs), but on a regular basis; hand out bookmarks, pens, highlighters, etc. to classes you teach

From Soup to Nuts (Invited Paper)

From Soup to Nuts: Copyright, Social Networking and Electronic Surveillance
Tracy Mitrano, Director of IT Policy and of Computer Policy and Law Program, Cornell University

· Copyright law and technology out of sync with current business models and social norms

· Copyright is negatively impacting e-reserve materials; people are scared/confused about provision rights so they back off providing access; even if access is behind authentication, that doesn’t automatically protect against copyright violation; must adhere to TEACH Act

· Recommends creating e-reserves fair use checklist and faculty sign-off with input into course management systems; due diligence statements

· With regard to DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) violations, if the institution is merely a conduit (student uses personal computer connected to campus network to illegally procure/share content with an independent computer elsewhere on the internet), not required to act on DMCA notices

· Infringement violations being called piracy, theft is minimizing seriousness of infringement (min. $750 fine per incident; adds up quickly)

· Settlement letters placing institutions in pinched position when asked to forward letters to student violators; some institutions (including Cornell) forward to students believing knowledge of and accountability for such violations contributes to students’ moral/ethical development

· Has intellectual property become the business model instead of the product in the entertainment arena? (settlement letters perfect example)

· Higher ed institutions are likely being targeted for ISP-identified violations because the RIAA knows that we don’t have Congressional defenders to stop settlement letters/DMCA notices, and institutions actually care about students and missions for betterment of society

While the rest of her presentation on social networking and electronic surveillance was fascinating, it has very little applicability to our library, so I'm electing not to include my notes. If you'd like to read them, however, I'll be happy to share!

Keeping in the Flow (Forum)

Keeping Libraries in the Flow: Being Relevant in the World of Amazoogle
Richard Dougherty, Dougherty and Associates; Gary Pitkin, Dean of Libraries and Professor, University of Northern Colorado; Steven Bell, Philadelphia University; Wendy Lougee, University Librarian, University of Minnesota; Michelle Jacobs, Instruction Librarian, University of California-Merced

What is driving change in libraries today?
· Technology
· User expectations
· Accountability
· Lack of money
· Changing curriculum
· Generational shift
· Changing demographics
· Online education
· Globalization
· Space constraints
· Information competitors
· Assessment
· Administrative ignorance

When campus administrators refer to libraries as black holes, sink holes, pits, etc. it denotes a problem, but it’s OUR problem, not the administrations’; must ensure that library’s mission is/becomes critical to the mission of the institution as a whole

Must build stakeholders on campus by becoming full partner in teaching and learning process; can no longer be viewed merely as support; realize that it takes time to change our role/perception with faculty, administration

Meeting needs, expectations of legacy faculty is a challenge and how you balance their demands/needs/wants with those of younger faculty depends on campus culture and power of faculty; can work to improve culture by assisting faculty in bridging the technology divide

Academic libraries play a key role in retention of students; must be structured so that we can keep pace with [possibly lead?] change

Must be committed to:
· Keeping up
· Being open to change
· Integrating ourselves in teaching and learning
· Finding what is broken and fixing it (we can provide innovative services for our users, but if the circulation policy is too restrictive, then we still aren’t meeting their needs)

Three trends we should pay attention to:
· Privatization
· Emphasis on learning experience
· Shifting focus from product to process

Embracing technology, working collaboratively, and interacting with diverse people are three necessary elements of students’ learning experience for the 21st century; libraries need to ensure that we serve/meet these needs

Eliminate library jargon: compare ILL to Amazon (find what you want, wait a couple of days, delivered directly to you); compare Google results (50 good ones) to those gleaned from library database (3000 good ones): note that while running a Google search might be faster, you save time in the long run because you don’t have to sift for authoritative results in library databases; show students how to play in our world, only don’t tell them that it’s our world!

One presenter’s suggestion [with which I take objection]: Make sure you do things that are both engaging and time-saving, such as eliminate the physical reference desk in favor of email/IM/text messaging for quick answer questions, and scheduled office hours and appointments for in-depth reference questions, which gives students more real world experience when we don’t simply drop everything to help them when they walk in the door [Ahem, meaning not at their point-of-need, not when we’re needed most, we don’t want to actually do this?! To think, I thought librarianship was a SERVICE profession...]

Working from the Grass Roots (Panel Session)

Working from the Grass Roots: Best Practices in Campus Scholarly Communications Programs
John Ober, Director, Policy, Planning, and Outreach, Office of Scholarly Communication; Teresa Fishel, Library Director, Macalester College; Carolyn Mills, Reference Librarian and Biology Liaison, University of Connecticut; John Saylor, Director of the Engineering and Computer Science Library, Cornell University

· Scholarly communications programs must be seen as strategic

· Faculty are part of the problem, therefore they have a role as part of the solution

· Engage faculty in planning SC programs, particularly when crafting the missions statement

· Faculty spokesperson are necessary key players

· Might have greater success by focusing on younger faculty (newly tenured or tenure track), as they are generally more collaborative when sharing work, more comfortable with technology, more open to change (less tradition bound), and will be around longer than senior faculty (longevity is key point, as it will likely take 10 years for SC programs to see full fruition of mission)

· Hold one-on-one conversations to increase awareness and understanding of issues; smaller groups or one-on-one work well because it’s hard to get faculty, grad students to big programs

· Develop an “elevator speech” or sound-bite; possibly tailor messages for different ranks, departments

· Discern faculty knowledge of SC issues, feelings on FRPAA (Federal Research Public Access Act), author rights, student access to research

· Realize that even if you don’t have converts, you’ve at least had conversation

· Create a university-wide council of provosts, faculty, librarians, technologists, administrators, and students

· Complete system-wide environmental scan based on ACRL/Scholarly Communications Institute “Faculty Activism Assessment Instrument”

· Build base of institutional repository users (takes time!) to recruit others; individual users turn into champions

· Use liaisons to reach departments; remember, though, that liaisons may be uncomfortable taking on much SC promotion/education responsibility, as these are big issues with which they may not have enough personal familiarity to be able to speak knowledgeably in conversations with faculty

· Author rights campaigns great way to spread word around campus; brochures enable more rapid, far-reaching dissemination of key information; grad students especially receptive audience on copyright

Online Instruction (Panel Session)

Reflecting on Online Instruction and Learning: Best Practices and Trends in Online Information Literacy Tutorials
Terrence B. Bennett, Business and Economics Librarian, The College of New Jersey Library; Melissa K. Prescott, Reference and Instruction Librarian, St. Cloud State University; Jennifer Sharkey, Associate Professor of Library Science, Purdue University Libraries

Best practices for online information literacy tutorials:
· Relate to specific course/assignment
· Incorporate active and collaborative learning
· Present information in multiple ways
· Have transferable concepts
· State clear objectives
· Give option to ask a librarian for help

Current design trends:
· Shorter, modular, discreet
· Point of need
· Increased interactivity
· Assessment
· Gaming aspects (representative student avatars)

Trends in use, presentation, marketing:
· Course requirements
· Direct links from portals or course management systems (Blackboard, WebCT)
· Distance learning
· Specific groups
· Point of need

ARCS model of motivational design:
· Attention – acquire and sustain
· Relevance – apply to personal needs
· Confidence – develop appropriate expectancy for success
· Satisfaction – apply skills outside learning environment

Professors who mandate tutorial completion add credibility to tutorials that librarians can’t hope to have because we don’t assign students’ grades

Discreet learning objects teach literacy at point of need while assisting students in completing tasks (ex: tutorial walks students through search process from library home page search interface)

Use the four learning styles to construct effective teaching practices:
· Auditory – listening, hearing
· Reading/writing – processing text
· Kinesthetic – moving, doing, touching
· Visual – seeing, observing

While most people respond using all four learning styles, there is usually one that is predominant

When designing tutorials, incorporate elements for each learning style, spread throughout the tutorial; when possible, blend the elements to support more than one style at a time (ex: voice over narration, task completion, video/animation, text, charts, etc.)

The goals and objectives of the tutorial should ensure inclusion of all learning styles

Assessment in online learning is the same as in face-to-face instruction:
· Tests student learning
· Assesses effectiveness
· Verifies attendance/completion
· Gathers usage data

Assessment can drive backwards design: technology can make formative assessment (reinforcing the learning process) more interesting, more relevant, more interactive (ex: short quiz mid-tutorial); summative assessment (end of tutorial) may be less effective due to limitations of technology

Tutorial design ideas stemming from assessment components:
· Immediate scoring and feedback on wrong answers
· Opportunity for user-to-user feedback (ex: noting particularly helpful/applicable section)
· Ability to assess which modules are and are not read important for future planning

Mashups & Subject Searching (Contributed Papers)

Library Mashups for the Virtual Campus: Using Web 2.0 Tools for Current Awareness
Adriene Lim, Systems Librarian/Assistant Professor, Portland State University; Linda Absher, Humanities Librarian, Portland State University; Kerry Wu, Business Librarian/Assistant Professor, Portland State University

Portland State University Library has designed beta “Topic Watch” pages using HTML, JavaScript, AJAX, CSS to create mashups of relevant information sources

Uses RSS feeds organized by topic (news, podcasts, etc.), provides front page multisearch/federated search option powered by SerialsSolutions’ 360Search (formerly Central Search), and employs tags from sites such as Del.icio.us to direct students to relevant websites

Includes new books section with title links to OPAC record

Mouse-over balloons give further information on title of interest

In podcast section, play buttons are incorporated in interface, and automatically open users’ media player

Although the rest of the information fed through the Topic Watch page is freely available, there is a small box alerting users that access to multisearch results require University username/password for access; search results display with icons (similar to those found in PubMed) linking students to institutional holdings

Wanted to include other APIs such as YouTube, but elected not to due to copyright concerns

Current concerns include lack of customization/personalization; no keyword filtering; few licensed databases offer RSS; possible copyright violations; non-Romanized characters displaying incorrectly

Topic Watch not just for students: many faculty don’t have time to subscribe to RSS, even if they know what it is, so these pages eliminate their need to do this CA work individually

Eventually the librarians hope to include links to webinars and videocasts; flag already read items; and share framework & scripts with other libraries using a Creative Commons license

Subject Search Disconnect: Or, How Do Our Users Want to Search for Subject Information
Margaret Mellinger, Assistant Professor, Oregon State University; Jane Nichols, Social Sciences/Humanities Librarian, Oregon State University

Students don’t really connect with libraries; this disconnect isn’t new but exacerbated by the internet

Historically, libraries have tried to connect users to information using taxonomies, pathfinders, and browse lists

Unfortunately, these methods are as incoherent as a building without doors

Visual search and tag clouds are new methods being used by libraries to make connections within subject searching

When confronted with a long list of database options, students (who want & expect a single search interface) can be overwhelmed, as they feel they shouldn’t have to know both where and what to search

Thus, students often choose familiars databases first, be it Google or ProQuest, even if it doesn’t best match subject (I think students and staff do that here with PubMed; not only is it the default database [with good reason], but it also offers a single search box right on the front page!!)

Common search features that, thanks to Google and Yahoo!, students want/expect include: short phrase natural language searching, no Boolean necessary, spell check, “Did you mean...?”, suggested terms, and relevancy-ranked results

The Reference Question: Iceland or Greenland? (Panel Session)

The Reference Question—Where Has Reference Been, Where is Reference Going?
James Rettig, University Librarian, University of Richmond; Jerry Campbell, President, Claremont School of Theology; William Miller, Director of Libraries, Florida Atlantic University; Brian Matthews, Public Services Librarian, Georgia Institute of Technology

Before the web, libraries had a monopoly on information, and reference librarians sat at the top with wizard-like status in our ability to discern students’ information needs. However the changing information landscape has resulted in a loss of control for librarians. To a great extent this disintermediation has been done to us, not by us. As such, we need to step back and see the dimensions of what we are trying to accomplish, and be clear not only about what we are doing but why. The mission has become more important than the means.

Our established practices are comfort zones that we do not want to abandon, but comfort zones make us slow to change, therefore we need to step out and explore new methods of service without being afraid of failure. Experimenting with disruptive technologies eventually leads to the adoption of new habits of practice in reference service provision.

Ultimately we must decide: what kind of Vikings are we? Are we going to survive in the newly discovered Iceland because we are willing to adapt our old practices to live in the new environment, or are we going to die out in Greenland because we refuse to change, implementing our time-honored methods of subsistence in the new, different, somewhat inhospitable world? Are we going to be creative and innovative? Are we going to eat fish?

Technical "difficulties"

Well, my plan of nightly postings from my Baltimore hotel room recapping the events of the day here at ACRL 2007 have not panned out: being in a hotel that does not grant free wireless access to guests was not a roadblock I had fully anticipated! As most of the sessions have been highly engaging and I have not wanted to miss anything, I sacrificed timely posts in lieu of expanding my knowledge, which I feel certain is not a problem with anyone. That said, I do hope to get some reflections from Friday and today posted soon, with more to follow in short order.

Liaison Preconference

Taking Your Library Liaison Program to the Next Level: Strategies for Outreach and Integration
Craig Gibson, Associate University Librarian, George Mason University; Jamie Coniglio, Head, Reference Department, Fenwick Library, George Mason University

Four themes must be understood in order to operate effective liaison programs:
1. Culture
2. Structure
3. Relationships
4. Perceptions

These themes must be understood both within the library and externally throughout the institution (ie, how we fit into the institution as a whole)

Librarians are not the only ones challenged by the changing information infrastructure.
Faculty are also being challenged and our approach to liaison programs must reflect this

Librarians, particularly in liaison roles, need to be proactive, not reactive, change agents. Liaisons can encourage culture change through contacts on campus

The distinctions between consumer and creator are blurring (think Web 2.0), and as such our focus as liaisons needs to become more fluid: we need to move from supporter to partner, becoming an integral part of the academic enterprise. Liaisons should be seen as central to the programs/departments they serve

Liaisons need to have a nuanced understanding of the culture in which they are working to be effective. This culture also includes the "unconscious infrastructure", which is often more powerful than the explicit culture recorded in organizational charts and policies manuals

Liaisons should have a broad knowledge of the following areas:
*Demographic changes in students, faculty
*Teaching and learning changes
*Bibliographic organization and knowledge management
*Curricular changes
*Technological changes
*Research agendas and priorities
*Vendors
*Scholarly communication system

Faculty buy-in for liaison programs is key, but such support is hard to gain when faculty don’t understand us and don’t have time to listen to our explanations. Unlike our profession, which is collaborative in nature, faculty culture is more individualistic

Just as change takes time, so too does building an effective liaison program. However, people need to see symbolic representations of change, so at some point we have to stop talking and start doing!

Look for previously existing relationships (often built by library administrators) to leverage when identifying supportive stakeholders within departments

When building a liaison platform, communication between, among and with librarians is crucial in enabling liaisons to have the foundation from which they can develop their own structured plan within different departments. Let institutional goals be the drumbeat driving liaisons

Once a liaison program is up and running, maintain connectivity among liaison librarians through blogs, monthly lunches, periodic assessments. Don’t let your liaisons feel lonely!

Liaison programs, like all library services, must be marketed. Although word of mouth is always the best marketing tool, planning the sale and what you will do to meet your target is key

Identify and know your stakeholders. Find communication channels during which the liaison program might be emphasized: coffee, lunch/dinner, drinks, shared walk to parking lot

Check out the preconference wiki: http://liaisonprograms.pbwiki.com/

Sharing made easy!

Following the lead of our esteemed colleagues over on the Reynolda Campus, and with encouragement from MollyB & Julie, I'm creating a blog where we can share tips & tricks, bytes & insights from the various professional development activities we each attend. Although sharing knowledge gleaned from meetings, workshops, and conferences via emailed synopses & handouts is beneficial, if you don't have time to read them immediately, such emails can get lost amid the inbox shuffle. By creating a centralized place that we can all contribute to, regardless of locale (ideally we will post while attending such activities, so the info is fresh...but back at work is fine too), we will be better able to track and synthesize the multifaceted professional development pursuits of Carpenter librarians!