DigitalKoans

One of the interesting findings of my brief investigation of open access repository software by country was the heavy use of Wildfire in the Netherlands.

Wildfire was created by Henk Druiven, University of Groningen, and it is used by over 70 repositories. It runs on a PHP, MySQL, and Apache platform.

Here is a brief description from In Between.

Wildfire is the software our library uses for our OAI compatible repositories. It is a flexible system for setting up a large number of repositories that at the same time allows them to be aggregated in groups. A group acts like yet another repository with its own harvest address and user interface.

There are several descriptive documents about Wildfire, but most are not in English.

There is an interesting article by Stanley Wilder in the "Careers" section of the February 23, 2007 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education ("The New Library Professional").

Using 2005 data, he notes that 23% of the professionals in ARL libraries are in nontraditional positions (e.g., development, human resources, and IT), and 39% of under-35 professionals are in these type of positions. In this under-35 group, 24% of nontraditional professionals earn $54,000 (or more). Forty-seven percent of under-35 computer professionals make $50,000 or more. (Needless to say, traditional librarians have not done as well salary-wise, leading to equity concerns.) The number of professionals who do not have an MLS has skyrocketed by 142% since 1985.

I wonder if there are significant differences in this trend by ARL library rank, with it being stronger at more larger, more affluent libraries or at libraries in private institutions.

My own experience during the last 20 years or so at a small public ARL library was that it was a constant struggle to get approval for new computer professional positions; to be able to recruit at salaries that, while not truly competitive, were at least not laughable; to upgrade existing positions so that they more adequately reflected job duties and marketplace values; and to retain staff. This was more difficult for non-MLS professionals than for MLS professionals.

More than once I, as an Assistant Dean/Director of Systems, had to take direct responsibility for Web support because of lengthy recruitment difficulties, including one two-year stretch where I did 100% of all Web support work in addition to my normal duties (I also ran the branch libraries for one year of that period). As an Assistant Dean for Digital Library Planning and Development, I had no staff and no prospect of getting any.

At some research libraries, non-MLS professionals may find that they have no career path or a short one. Taking computer professionals as an example, the issue is how far up the hierarchy can non-MLS professionals go before they hit the "must have an accredited MLS" ceiling? Can they become unit heads, department heads, ADs, or Deans/Directors? The answer may vary by library. Another issue is, generous salaries aside, are nontraditional professionals treated as second-class citizens in other ways than advancement (e.g., they may not be given the same level of support for professional travel and activities, especially if MLS librarians have faculty or faculty-like status and are adequately supported in their efforts to move up the academic ranks). Given that 39% of under-35 professionals are in nontraditional jobs, these are important issues to address, especially if Boomer librarians manage to retire en masse as some predict. It would not be a pretty sight to have Boomers heading out the door just as younger nontraditional librarians bump their heads on the MLS ceiling and start considering other career options.

This is a liminal period for research libraries, and, to a significant degree, nontraditional staff will determine their future success.

Source: Wilder, Stanley. "The New Library Professional." The Chronicle of Higher Education, 23 February 2007, C1, C4.

Based on data from the OpenDOAR Charts service, here is snapshot of the open access repository software that is in use in the top five countries that offer such repositories.

The countries are abbreviated in the table header column as follows: US = United States, DK = Germany, UK = United Kingdom, AU = Australia, and NL = Netherlands. The number in parentheses is the reported number of repositories in that country.

Read the country percentages downward in each column (they do not total to 100% across the rows).

Excluding "unknown" or "other" systems, the highest in-country percentage is shown in boldface.

OpenDOAR has introduced OpenDOAR Charts, a nifty new service that allows users to create and view charts that summarize data from its database of open access repositories.

Here’s what a selection of the default charts show today. Only double-digit percentage results are discussed.

• Repositories by continent: Europe is the leader with 49% of repositories. North America places second with 33%.
• Repositories by country: In light of the above, it is interesting that the US leads the pack with 29% of repositories. Germany (13%) and the UK follow (11%).
• Repository software: After the 28% of unknown software, EPrints takes the number two slot (21%), followed by DSpace (19%).
• Repository types: By far, institutional repositories are the leader at 79%. Disciplinary repositories follow (13%).
• Content types: ETDs lead (53%), followed by unpublished reports/working papers (48%), preprints/postprints (37%), conference/workshop papers (35%), books/chapters/sections (31%), multimedia/av (20%), postprints only (17%), bibliographic references (16%), special items (15%), and learning objects (13%).

This is a great service; however, I’d suggest that University of Nottingham consider licensing it under a Creative Commons license so that snapshot charts could be freely used (at least for noncommercial purposes).

The Creative Commons has released version 3.0 of its popular licenses.

Here’s an excerpt from the press release that explains the changes:

Separating the “generic” from the US license

As part of Version 3.0, we have spun off the “generic” license to be the CC US license and created a new generic license, now known as the “unported” license. For more information about this change, see this more detailed explanation.

Harmonizing the treatment of moral rights & collecting society royalties

In Version 3.0, we are ensuring that all CC jurisdiction licenses and the CC unported license have consistent, express treatment of the issues of moral rights and collecting society royalties (subject to national differences). For more information about these changes, see this explanation of the moral rights harmonization and this explanation of the collecting society harmonization.

No Endorsement Language

That a person may not misuse the attribution requirement of a CC license to improperly assert or imply an association or relationship with the licensor or author, has been implicit in our licenses from the start. We have now decided to make this explicit in both the Legal Code and the Commons Deed to ensure that — as our licenses continue to grow and attract a large number of more prominent artists and companies — there will be no confusion for either the licensor or licensee about this issue. For a more detailed explanation, see here.

BY-SA — Compatibility Structure Now Included

The CC BY-SA 3.0 licenses will now include the ability for derivatives to be relicensed under a “Creative Commons Compatible License,” which will be listed here. . . . More information about this is provided here.

Clarifications Negotiated With Debian & MIT

Finally, Version 3.0 of the licenses include minor clarifications to the language of the licenses to take account of the concerns of Debian (more details here) and MIT (more details here).

The CNI-COPYRIGHT mailing list is moving and changing its name.

The list is now called PIJIP-COPYRIGHT, and its e-mail address is PIJIP-COPYRIGHT@roster.wcl.american.edu.

The list’s new home page is:

http://roster.wcl.american.edu/archives/pijip-copyright.html

Peter Jaszi, Professor of Law and Faculty Director of the Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property at the Washington College of Law, American University is now in charge of the list.

The Council on Library and Information Resources has published the Census of Institutional Repositories in the United States: MIRACLE Project Research Findings, which was written by members of the University of Michigan School of Information’s MIRACLE (Making Institutional Repositories a Collaborative Learning Environment) Project. The report is freely available in digital form.

Here is an excerpt from the CLIR press release:

In conducting the census, the authors sought to identify the wide range of practices, policies, and operations in effect at institutions where decision makers are contemplating planning, pilot testing, or implementing an IR; they also sought to learn why some institutions have ruled out IRs entirely.

The project team sent surveys to library directors at 2,147 institutions, representing all university main libraries and colleges, except for community colleges, in the United States. About 21% participated in the census. More than half of the responding institutions (53%) have done no IR planning. Twenty percent have begun to plan, 16% are actively planning and pilot testing IRs, and 11% have implemented an operational IR.

While the study confirms a number of previous survey findings on operational IRs—such as the IR’s disproportionate representation at research institutions and the leading role of the library in planning, testing, implementing, and paying for IRs—the census also offers a wealth of new insights. Among them is the striking finding that half of the respondents who had not begun planning an IR intend to do so within 24 months.

Other institutional repository surveys include the ARL Institutional Repositories SPEC Kit and the DSpace community survey.

The Wall Street Journal ran a lengthy article about the personal finances of John L. Hennessy, president of Stanford University, today ("The Golden Touch of Stanford’s President"). It kicks off by noting that Hennessy made $1 million last November that didn’t come from Stanford.

The last seven paragraphs are of interest, since they discuss Stanford’s relationship to the Google Book Search Library Project. The Executive Director of the Author’s Guild says that Hennessy’s Google holdings are a "great concern" and there "seems to be both a personal and institutional profit motive here." The Stanford general counsel indicates that Hennessy was not part of discussions about Google Book Search Library Project. Another issue is Google’s $2 million gift to the Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society to promote fair use. Lawrence Lessig denies that the Google gift had any "quid pro quo" implications, and the former Law School Dean indicates that Hennessy had no part in the Google gift.

Concerns about potential conflict of interest may be fueled by Hennessy’s $11 million gains from sale of Google stock and use of stock options, his current Google stock holdings valued at $2.3 million, and his Google stock options that may be worth $15.8 million if exercised.

Source: Hechinger, John, and Rebecca Buckman. "The Golden Touch of Stanford’s President." The Wall Street Journal, 24 Febuary 2007, A1, A10.

What was new and interesting during the week of 2/19/07? (Brief quotes follow article/Web page titles.)

• "Colleges Struggle to Cope with Flood of Copyright Complaints"
  

  The major record labels are sending thousands more copyright nastygrams to colleges regarding student file sharing this year.

• "DRM and Patents"
  

  Once the ISO standard 21000 was passed, MPEG-LA announced that it would now provide licensing for any patents relating to DRM. Shortly thereafter the companies providing content primarily via cell phone (and mostly in Europe), the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA), received word that MPEG-LA had developed a license for them.

• "European Countries Drafting ISP Data Retention Laws"
  

  European governments are preparing legislation to require companies to keep detailed data about people’s Internet and phone use that goes beyond what the countries will be required to do under a European Union directive.

• "Free Legal Representation for Fair-Use Filmmakers"
  

  Documentary film-makers are often hobbled by copyright—the insurers and studios won’t let them release their movies until every single copyrighted component is licensed, no matter that they’re clearly legal fair use. . . . Now, Stanford’s Fair Use Project has announced that it will provide free legal services to films that follow the guidelines.

• "How Do Public Libraries Use Digital Interlibrary Loan? Copyright, a Chicago Roundtable and Very Cold Weather"
  

  I [Mary Minow] told Marsha I’d blog the Chicago Jan. 31 Copyright Roundtable that I participated in (BRRRR!). The roundtable was sponsored by the Library of Congress Section 108 Study Group in cooperation with the Copyright Office.

• "‘Latest News’: EPrints Meets Web 2.0"
  

  We report on the development of "Latest News" a small feature, we added to our EPrints-2.0 based archive, dLIST. Latest News is wildly popular as a social networking tool with the dLIST communities.

• "Google Charges for Web Programs"
  

  Google has introduced a paid-for version of its web applications it hopes will be popular with small firms.

• "Microsoft Quietly Tests a New ‘Pay-as-You-Go’ Rental Scheme for Office"
  

  Microsoft has been testing quietly a new "pay-as-you-go" rental program for Office 2003 in South Africa, Mexico and Romania, and will decide in the next couple of months whether to extend the program to include Office 2007.

• "MIT Puts Entire Curriculum at Disposal of E-Learners"
  

  The entire catalogue of information from 1,800 courses at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) will be available free online by
  the end of the year.

• "Neutrality on the Net Gets High ‘08 Profile"
  

  Hardly a household term, it [net neutrality] has no overtly partisan or ideological dimensions. Yet it is shaping up as a Democratic issue this year, largely because its most fervid advocates are liberal bloggers and other Internet activists who play a big role in the early stages of choosing a Democratic presidential nominee.

• "New Weapon in Web War over Piracy"
  

  As media companies struggle to reclaim control over their movies, television shows and music in a world of online file-sharing software, they have found an ally in software of another kind.

• "Quite an Interesting Conversation About Fair Use"
  

  For those of us who can’t imagine how anyone could not believe that such a use is fair—a law professor posting a 30 second clip that contains the copyright notice for the game, in the context of study of copyright protection —will find some interesting explanations, from at least one IP lawyer, of why it’s not fair.

• "RIAA Fights Back, Threatens Open Wi-Fi"
  

  Debbie Foster was sued by RIAA member company Capitol Records for allegedly sharing copyrighted material on a P2P file sharing network. However, the alleged infringement was apparently committed by someone else with access to her ISP account.

• "Software That Will This Sentence Fix"
  

  Israel-based WhiteSmoke has devised a program that, by checking against a vast database, makes English text more fluent.

• "U.K. Government Rejects Calls for DRM Ban"
  

  The U.K. government has rejected a call for digital rights management to be banned in the U.K., but has acknowledged that the technology could undermine consumer rights.

• "US Copyright Lobby Out-of-Touch"
  

  Internet law professor Michael Geist takes a look at intellectual property protection in the US and finds it somewhat out of step with the rest of the world.

• "User 2.0: Innovative Library Sites (Part 1—Academic Libraries)"
  

  Today I [Marie L. Radford] am posting the preliminary list of Innovative Academic Libraries from these sources. Eash listing also has a very brief note about social software applications featured by the library’s website.

• "Worldcat Registries"
  

  The WorldCat Registry is a Web-based directory for libraries and library consortia. It is an authoritative single source for information that defines institutional identity, services, relationships, contacts and other key data often shared with third parties.

• "Windows Vista: My Take, for What It’s Worth"
  

  Having seen a little nonsense and a fair amount of sense on Vista, I [Walt Crawford] thought I’d add my two cents worth.