Current Awareness

Column Editor: Gina Cybulska

This column contains summaries of articles (print and electronic) about information access and retrieval, electronic publishing, preservation and virtual libraries etc. including, with permission, abstracts identified with an * next to the author initials, drawn from Current Cites, the monthly publication distributed electronically by a team of Librarians and Library Staff and edited by Roy Tennant (http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/CurrentCites).

If you are interested in providing reviews for the column, please contact UKeiG administration for further details.

Catalogues/cataloguing

"Special Issue on Institutional Repositories" Library Trends 57(2)(2008) (http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/library_trends/toc/lib.57.2.html) – This special issue on institutional repositories contains the following articles: "Introduction: Institutional Repositories: Current State and Future," "Innkeeper at the Roach Motel," "Institutional Repositories in the UK: The JISC Approach," "Strategies for Institutional Repository Development: A Case Study of Three Evolving Initiatives," "Perceptions and Experiences of Staff in the Planning and Implementation of Institutional Repositories," "Institutional Repositories and Research Data Curation in a Distributed Environment," "At the Watershed: Preparing for Research Data Management and Stewardship at the University of Minnesota Libraries," "Case Study in Data Curation at Johns Hopkins University," "Describing Scholarly Works with Dublin Core: A Functional Approach," "The 'Wealth of Networks' and Institutional Repositories: MIT, DSpace, and the Future of the Scholarly Commons," "Leveraging Short-term Opportunities to Address Long-term Obligations: A Perspective on Institutional Repositories and Digital Preservation Programs," and "Shedding Light on the Dark Data in the Long Tail of Science." [CB]* (edited)

the usual academic separation of the author from the subject. No, here Salo is clearly writing about something quite important to her, and she's worked up a pretty good lather about it. Her main saving grace is that she is, by and large, right. Also, rather than end the article after a lengthy litany of failures, she redeems the piece with some specific suggestions on how to save the day. Since the preprint has been out for over a year, there has already been discussion of it, and as Salo herself reports, some remediation of the problems she identified. But I also expect the official publication to spur additional discussion and, one hopes, work to address the issues she identifies. The author's copy is also available (of course) in the author's institutional repository. [RT]* (edited)

"Special Issue: Next Generation OPACs" Library Hi Tech 27(1)(2009) – "Next Gen OPACs" is an oft-used phrase these days – at conferences, in hallway conversations, and in the library literature. Thus this special issue is hardly a surprise, but it does have some interesting articles. If you want more information on some next gen library catalogs (I despise the term "OPAC"), the articles on VUFind and Blacklight (two of the systems built on the Solr platform) may be of interest. There are also more conceptual pieces as well as articles on federated searching, e-reserves, statistics, and other topics. Basically, if you're interested in anything related to library resource discovery and use you will probably find something of interest in this issue. [RT]*

E-publishing

Harris, Sian. Redefining e-books. Research Information April/May 2009, p16-21 – Seven representatives from the publishing and information sectors briefly discuss the current and possible future trends in e-books and e-book publishing. E-books are transforming scholarly research and the market is beginning to stabilise, although it isn’t transparent enough. Issues surrounding the need to access chapters, rather than full book content and the format are recurring throughout the sectors. Digital rights management (DRM) is an issue that still needs to be addressed by publishers. [GC]

Venkatraman, A. The open road. Information World Review, April 2009, pp13-14 – This short article reviews the background and market for open access (OA) publishing. It discusses the business models used by some of the major publishers and considers the issues that they faced when changing their business to include OA publishing. OA is considered to increase the flow of information and it is envisaged that OA publishing will increasingly be available in other areas such as humanities and social sciences. Information World Review (IWR) is now published by Bizmedia. [GC]

Best Practices for Publishing Journal Articleshttp://lists.webjunction.org/currentcites/2009/cc09.20.3.html Philadelphia, PA: The National Federation of Advanced Information Services, 13 February 2009. (http://www.nfais.org/Best_Practices_Final_Public.pdf) – The advent of the Internet and tools to foster the publication of journals online has led to a number of new problems faced by abstracting and indexing services. One of the major changes in online publication is the release of individual articles prior to the release of a journal issue. The National Federation of Advanced Information Services (NFAIS), which serves many such organizations, convened a working group to look into the problems arising from this practice. They identified the following problems that article-by-article publication posed to indexers: "1) Identifying the article of record; handling versions in a way that minimizes confusion and provides the appropriate citation data early. 2) Knowing that an issue – or a "package” of articles – is complete. 2) Abstracting and indexing services receiving articles published online without page numbers, while page numbers are added to another version at a later date. 4) Assuring that articles are published and included in A&I services more rapidly to provide the best services to authors, readers, and libraries. 5) Assuring that links are made to the article of record; other linking problems. 6) Dealing with workflow issues such as the absence of regular publication dates or the receipt of articles twice – for example, when an article is released and when an issue is completed. 7) Problems with citation structures – missing bibliographic elements, lack of standards for article-by-article publishing resulting in a hodgepodge of practices, no standard for handling articles that do not have page numbers." This 30-page PDF therefore describes a set of best practices for journal publishers that would help alleviate these problems. [RT]*

Willinsky, John. "Toward the Design of an Open Monograph Press" Journal of Electronic Publishing 12(1)(2009)(http://dx.doi.org/10.3998/3336451.0012.103) – The Public Knowledge Project's open source Open Journal Systems software has become the platform of choice for many scholarly electronic journals published by universities, libraries, and other non-commercial organizations. Consequently, its Open Monograph Press, which is under development, is of keen interest to the academic community, especially in a time when university presses are struggling to survive and a major press (the University of Michigan Press) has announced that it will emphasize digital monographs in the future. This paper overviews the sorry state of scholarly monograph publishing and provides the first detailed look into the innovative architecture of the Open Monograph Press. [CB]*

Education

Casden, Jason, Kim Duckett, and Tito Sierra, et. al. "Course Views: A Scalable Approach to Providing Course-Based Access to Library Resources" Code4Lib Journal (6)(20 March 2009) (http://journal.code4lib.org/articles/1218) – The goal was ambitious: to automatically generate library course pages for every course at NCSU. In order to do this, they needed to develop a hierarchy or framework of resources and services with varying degrees of granularity, from the completely generic to subject- and course-specific. Each page then takes the input of the course identifier, such as 'ENG 101' and then populates the page with resources that would be helpful for English Lit at the 100 level. A certain amount of old-style manual customization is also allowed for. The finished pages are then integrated into the Course Management Software. Through this customization and integration with various systems, they've been able to increase usage of library resources. [LRK]*

Richardson, Janice, Andrea Milwood Hargrave, and Basil Moratille, et. al. The Internet Literacy Handbookhttp://lists.webjunction.org/currentcites/2009/cc09.20.4.html (December 2008) (http://www.coe.int/t/dghl/standardsetting/Internetliteracy/hbk_EN.asp) – The Internet Literacy Handbook is a clear, simple online tool that most Internet trainers in library settings could find a use for. This is the third edition, updated in December 2008. There are two free online versions (Flash and HTML) and a printed copy may be purchased online. The handbook is aimed at parents, teachers and young people, and covers introductory explanations of the World Wide Web, e-mail, spam and chat, through to blogs, Web 2.0 and e-democracy. Issues like privacy, security and online bullying are also covered. Links to external sites offer further reading. [WC]*

Taylor, Mark C.O "End the University as We Know It" The New York Times (27 April, 2009) (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/27/opinion/27taylor.html) – This Op-Ed piece from the New York Times is certainly causing quite a stir. Taylor begins with the assertion that "most graduate programs in American universities produce a product for which there is no market." Graduate programs are little more than a way to harness the work of underpaid graduate students in the laboratories and classrooms of universities. Taylor recommends a six-step plan to make "higher learning more agile, adaptive and imaginative," which he parallels to the types of significant overhauls needed on Wall Street and in the auto industry. A quick but thought-provoking read. [SG]*

indicated that they had a more positive view of their library after the training. This program demonstrated that a collaboration between local institutions can greatly benefit both the population being targeted by the training as well as the public library. While many libraries may not be able to work directly with a library school, partnerships with other institutions or community groups could be formed to develop a similar program. [AC]*

General

Pew Internet & American Life Project. Internet Typology: The Mobile Differencehttp://lists.webjunction.org/currentcites/2009/cc09.20.4.html Washington, DC: Pew Research Center, 25 March 2009. (http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1162/Internet-typology-users-mobile-communication-devices) –Anyone going home on a bus or train is witness to a revolution in technology and access to information: all around are sure to be people using smart-phones or netbooks, people texting each other, sending e-mail and photos, and accessing the Internet. Now we have a report by the Pew Research Center that reflects pretty much what anyone using public transportation can observe every day: "Cast a glance at any coffee shop, train station or airport boarding gate, and it is easy to see that mobile access to the Internet is taking root in our society. Open laptops or furrowed brows staring at palm-sized screens are evidence of how routinely information is exchanged on wireless networks." The report goes on to look at the role that "mobile Internet access" plays in various user groups. It concludes that the tech bar "has risen": "In the past, having tech gear such as broadband at home generally placed people on the cutting edge; that is no longer the case.... Our new study shows that mobile connectivity is the new centerpiece of high-tech life." [LRK]*

Information access

Houser, John. "Open Source Public Workstations in Libraries" Library Technology Reports (April 2009) – Libraries are always trying to find a balance between their IT budgets and the demand for more and more public access workstations. John Houser takes us through open source systems and products for public access computers for academic and public libraries. He gives a clear synopsis of available open-source solutions for operating systems, server software, session management tools, system imaging, desktop applications, and running Windows. Houser introduces us to case studies for three different libraries: one running Linux with open-source applications; another sharing a single PC with two to ten people; and the last running open-source applications on a server with thin-client software. The article includes a link to an interesting podcast conversation with John Brice, which discusses the barriers and benefits for implementing open-source software. [KC]*

library "a nonexclusive, irrevocable, worldwide license to exercise any and all rights under copyright relating to our scholarly work, in any medium, and to authorize others to do the same, provided that the works are properly attributed to the authors and not sold for a profit." By the time of a work's publication or distribution, library faculty are to deposit a digital copy of the published version of the work in ScholarsArchive@OSU or submit a copy to have it deposited for them. [CB]*

Information Management

Carr, John. Box up your files and move ’em to the cloud. Information Today 26 (4) (April 2009), 20 – Overview of a selection of cloud computing services for remote storage and backup of electronic files. Article looks at Box.net and Dropbox and compares pricing and storage capacities. [MdS]

Information Retrieval

Bedord, Jean. SMX West 2009: search players are changing. Information Today 26 (4) (April 2009), 27-28 – Overview of the Search Marketing Expo that took place in February in California. Topics covered in the article include search marketing, new services such as Twitter, YouTube (now the second largest search engine), search engine optimisation and web analytics. [MdS]

Security

Britt, Phillip. Securing the mobile landscape. Information Today 26(4) (April 2009), 1, 11.
Useful article with some practical tips for organisations that give their workers laptops and smart phones. Suggests some simple measures that can be taken to secure data should the device be lost or stolen, as well as ways to prevent hackers breaking into networks. [MdS]

*Contributors to Current Cites:
Keri Cascio, Warren Cheetham, Alison Cody, Susan Gibbons, Leo Robert Klein, Roy Tennant Charles W. Bailey, Jr., Jesús Tramullas

Contributors:
Andrew Brown, Gina Cybulska, Virginia Havergal, Martin de Saulles, Ann Smith, Matt Treadwell

Call for abstractors for eLucidate

Do you like writing abstracts? Do you want to develop your abstracting skills? If so, UKEIG needs your help.

There are a number of journals and magazines that are currently not being covered, and we need people to write short, informative abstracts.

You will probably be reading the journal already as part of your professional involvement in the sector, so to write a short abstract relevant to the information community should not be a major increase in the time required. What’s more, many of our abstractors say they have a better understanding and retention of a topic when they take on board the developments and innovations they read about.

If you wish to volunteer, please contact me at g.cybulska@yahoo.co.uk

Please note that you will need to have access to the journal yourself, as we do not provide the copy for you.

I look forward to hearing from you

Gina