Rice University Press went all digital in 2006 and will be closing completely in September. As noted in this Chronicle article, this is particularly sad news because Rice’s experiment with going all digital held so much promise for greater sustainability.

The Chronicle article mentions an important point that I hadn’t realized: that Rice had a catalog of only approximately 20 titles. This makes sense given the labor required to edit and publish an academic text - whether digital and/or in print. However with so few volumes, the long tail effect doesn’t have much of a chance of being sustainable.

I hope that the announcement of its closing is premature, and that Rice UP is given more time. If not, the experiment hasn’t been given enough resources and time to succeed. Rice UP needs a larger catalog and a more diverse portfolio (academic books, books digitized at Rice, collaborative projects with the library, collaborative projects with the bookstore for university history books, etc)  before the actual test of sustainability can even begin, much less complete. I hope that we’ll see this experiment continue with the necessary resources for it to be a valid test.

From the SNAC website:

Leveraging the new standard Encoded Archival Context-Corporate Bodies, Persons, and Families (EAC-CPF), the SNAC Project will use digital technology to “unlock” descriptions of people from finding aids and link them together in exciting new ways. We will:

• Create efficient open-source tools that allow archivists to separate the process of describing people from that of records.
• Create a prototype integrated historical resource and access system that will link descriptions of people to one another and to descriptions of resources in archives, libraries and museums; online biographical and historical databases; and other diverse resources.

Mark Sullivan, the UFDC/DLC/dLOC programmer, recently shared this information. It’s exciting to see that SobekCM (our digital asset management system, digital library system, and digital production tool set) is such a streamlined solution with so much functionality. There are seven projects which make up the SobekCM solution. In those projects, there are:

113,643 lines of code ( not comments or empty lines )
23,452 lines of comments
420 files
60 folders
544 classes ( 55 abstract classes, 1 windows form, 5 ASPX pages )
14 interfaces

The main two projects are:

1) SobekCM_Bib_Package which has all the code to represent digital objects, read metadata, write metadata, etc.. This is used throughout all the DLC/UFDC/dLOC applications.

36,554 lines of code
5,796 lines of comments
121 files
19 folders
165 classes ( 3 abstract classes, 1 windows form )

2) SobekCM_Library which does all the rendering, navigation, authentication, etc for the SobekCM library. This relies heavily upon the above library for reading and displaying of digital resources and is utilized by both the builder and the customization manager.

68,803 lines of code
13,825 lines of comments
251 files
30 folders
328 classes ( 52 abstract classes )
11 interfaces

This does not include the 22 separate javascript files of which eight are written by me and include 3951 new lines of code and 702 lines of comments.

3) While the main SobekCM web project is not strictly a library, it is the third project in the SobekCM solution. It is the first project which a user interacts with when entering the library. This project is actually very small, containing only about 1300 .NET lines. It does house the five web forms used in the application, although these forms are quite small and are just basically skeletons into which the SobekCM_Library renders HTML or controls.

4) SobekCM_URL_Rewriter is a tiny library which is essentially just a HttpModule for rewriting and translating the URL to allow for cleaner URLs.

5) SobekCM_Tools is a small library ( about 4000 code lines ) which contains additional classes for logging, interacting with the tracking database, and interacting with the Florida Dark Archive (DAITSS). This is kept seperate from the general library since this is not strictly involved in rendering the HTML but is used by some modules and is used with the SobekCM_Library and SobekCM_Builder libraries for building collection text indexes and loading new items through the Builder.

6) FileUploadLibrary ( written by Darren Johnstone ) is about 3000 .NET code lines and 5500 lines of javascript used for uploading data via HTTP with a real-time upload progress bar. Quite useful and cool library which was adopted with very few changes and worked quite simply. Highly recommended… ( http://darrenjohnstone.net/ )

7) SobekCM_Builder. In addition to these libraries/projects used by the digital library, this library is employed (along with the SobekCM_Bib_Package, SobekCM_Library, and SobekCM_Tools) for the builder software which runs constantly in the background on another server, loading new items which are deposited into network folders or FTP folder. It also updates and builds all static pages, OAI feeds, RSS feeds, and builds the text indexes. Additionally, it reads and loads all of the FDA ingest reports from DAITSS.

6793 lines of code
858 lines of comments
26 files
3 folders
37 classes

Press Release:

For immediate release: August 4, 2010

For more information, contact:
Karla Strieb
Association of Research Libraries
202-296-2296
karla@arl.org

ARL Promotes Member Use of Large-Scale Digitization Principles

Washington DC— The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) Board of Directors unanimously voted on July 26, 2010, to endorse a set of nine principles to guide vendor/publisher relations in large-scale digitization projects of special collections materials, recommended by its Transforming Special Collections in the Digital Age Working Group. The Board’s vote strongly encourages ARL member libraries to refrain from signing future agreements with publishers or vendors, either individually or through consortia, that do not adhere to the principles.

The ARL Board recognizes that research libraries are increasingly finding that large-scale digitization of special collections materials involves partnerships with commercial vendors and publishers, and that those partnerships should be governed by principles that protect special collections materials and promote the broadest possible access to digital versions of them.

Special collections often include valuable and unique materials, but also incur special responsibilities for their stewards. Digital access to special collections materials has become important in revealing hidden materials and promoting humanities research, and ARL member libraries often require appropriate collaborations and partnerships to implement large-scale digitization activities.

The nine principles address issues including implications of the distinctive character of special collections, the need for libraries to retain their own copies of the products of digitization projects, the importance of promoting broad access to digitized collections, and concerns regarding the collection of data about users of digitized collections.

“I am thrilled that the ARL Board has endorsed these principles, which encourage research libraries and archives to provide digital access to special collections while safeguarding institutional interests and promoting broad public access,” said Anne R. Kenney, Chair of the Working Group. “At Cornell, we plan to draw on the framework to improve many terms in our negotiations with vendors, including to shorten embargo periods on all our digitized collections to five years or less.”

To view these principles, please visit: http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/principles_large_scale_digitization.pdf

News Release

It’s the best place to learn about the history, structure and activities of the organization.

The ACH is an independent, non-profit, professional organization whose principal activity is an annual conference, alternately hosted by an English-, Spanish-, French-, or Dutch-speaking Caribbean country. To encourage intellectual exchange, all delegates attend each conference session and all papers and discussions are simultaneously translated in English, Spanish and French. We encourage you to visit the website to learn more about our mission and initiatives.

*CALL FOR PAPERS:***

The ACH has also just issued its call for papers for the 2011 conference to be held in Puerto Rico next May. Information about how to propose either an individual paper or panel–along with the forms for each–are already posted online (just look under “Annual Meeting”). We had a record number of new presenters at the 2010 Barbados conference, a trend we hope will continue.

Digital Humanities 2011 conference: June 19-22, 2011, with excursions on June 23rd, to be hosted by Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, USA.

The ADHO Programme Committee will be issuing the Call for Papers, Short Papers, Posters, and Panels in late August 2010 with an anticipated deadline in November 2010.

This year’s program committee members are:
ACH: Bethany Nowviskie, Dot Porter, and Katherine Walter
ALLC: Arianna Ciula, John Nerbonne, and Jan Rybicki
SDI-SEMI: Dominic Foret, Cara Leitch, and Daniel O’Donnell

Local organizers are Glen Worthey and Matt Jockers.

APPLICATIONS TECHNICIAN:
Library Systems Department

Position: Applications Technician
Position Number: 59718
Salary Range: $34,435 - $76,831
Closing Date: July 26, 2010

Essential Skills, Knowledge and Abilities
The University Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is seeking an applications technician to join the application development team in the systems department.

This new twelve-month, full-time, time-limited position works on two grant-funded projects. The technician will be responsible for applications that will store data about cultural objects in North Carolina. Staff interfaces will support the addition, deletion, and editing of information about objects and the ingest of those objects. Additional administrative interfaces may be required to support the management of information by students who will contribute to the system as part of their coursework. Public interfaces will support browsing and searching, and will specifically include the ability to interact with the objects in a geo-spatial way. Programming will be developed using the Django framework for Python and Javascript.

The successful candidate should have good communication skills and the ability to work collaboratively with stakeholders and other members of the department to solve problems. Using strong analytic skills and grounded in usability and accessibility, the technician will create, version, document, maintain, and potentially enhance applications for the delivery of domain-specific digital collections. A necessary component of these systems is the ability for geographic discovery of objects.

The Technician should have an understanding of and experience with Javascript and a strong background of developing in Django or other interpreted web development frameworks.

This position is being recruited for at the Contributing Competency Level under the Career Banding program. The hiring range for this position is $34,435 - $39,800.

Work Schedule
Monday - Friday, 8:00a.m. - 5:00p.m.

Qualifications

Required:
The technician band requires basic foundation of knowledge and skills in area of specialization generally obtained from graduating from a technical school or community college with a degree in computer programming or graduation from a four-year college or university with nine semester hours in programming. Experience in the field of work related to the position’s role may be substituted on a year-for-year basis. Special note: This position may exclusively require a bachelor’s degree in a discipline related to the specific functions of the job.
Preferred:
Experience with traditional markup and related competencies such as XHTML, CSS, and an understanding of accessibility. Experience with interpreted scripting languages (e.g. Perl, PHP, Python), and frameworks (e.g. CakePHP, Django), relational database development and systems (e.g. MySQL, PostgreSQL, PostGIS), and JavaScript. Experience with geospatial information systems.oblem solving skills; Must be detail oriented and possess excellent organizational and project management skills.

To Apply
To apply for SPA positions, use the Office of Human Resources ApplicantWeb online application system http://www.unc.edu/appweb/step1.html. The ApplicantWeb will guide you through the process of completing your application online. Applicants will be able to create and save applications, resumes and cover letters. Positions are posted on the Library’s web page until filled. For more information on application procedures, applicants may contact:

Office of Human Resources
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
104 Airport Drive, CB #1045
Chapel Hill, NC 27514
(919) 962-2991

In working on metadata concerns, we recently had cause to pull a full list of all creators in the UF Digital Collections. This is infrastructure-style work (meaning not-glorious and not-exciting to most folks, but critically important). While behind-the-scenes metadata work is only exciting to some of us, the products of that work are exciting for everyone. Long-term deliverables take more time, but in the short term we can see visualizations and other fun things like wordles.

For instance, of the thousands and thousands (and thousands) of authors/creators, Florida and University are clearly dominant, as illustrated in the wordles below.

Original story here.

UWI, Mona Organizes Library Mission in Haiti

Posted: July 19, 2010

As part of its efforts to assist in the recovery and preservation of Haitian historical records, the UWI, Mona organized a library mission visit from the UWI to Haiti between July 12-16, 2010. The January earthquake significantly damaged the main library and archive buildings in Haiti which housed the documents of the country’s rich history as a result there is a need for support in preservation and training.

The UWI, Mona-Haiti Library Mission was designed to provide training and assistance in preservation/conservation to library and archival staff in Haiti. The mission was led by Mr. John Aarons, University Archivist for UWI, and former Jamaica government archivist. Other members of the contingent included: Mr. Dunstan Newman (Preservation/Conservation Librarian) and Mr. David Brown (Binder).

While in Haiti the team organized and delivered two workshops for the staff of the National Library and National Archives in basic binding and conservation techniques. They also undertook to assist in the repair and restoration work and monitored the work being done by the persons trained. The workshops were preceded by a brief survey of the situation at the National Library and Archives to determine the priority areas for training and the equipment and materials available.

The UWI-Mona has also accepted a librarian from the Haitian National Library to conduct a short internship at the University library.

The mission was proposed shortly after the January 12 earthquake by Dr. Matthew Smith, Director, UWI-Mona Haiti Initiative, in close consultation with Mme. Françoise Thybulle, Director of the National Library of Haiti, and Ms. Brooke Wooldridge, of the Digital Library of the Caribbean (FIU).

Title: Head of Digital Programs
Department: Frost Library
Type: Full Time
Application due: [Applications accepted until position filled]
Pay description: Salary commensurate with experience and qualifications

Amherst College seeks a creative and motivated individual to lead the library’s efforts to produce, gather, organize, and disseminate digital content useful to the curriculum, in need of preservation, or unique to the College and of use to the larger scholarly community. We seek candidates with a history of project planning and management, a commitment to collegial decision-making, a talent for empowering colleagues, and a penchant for pushing the envelope.

To view the complete job description, please click https://www.amherst.edu/library/about/jobs.

A review of applications begins immediately and continues until the position is filled.

Minimum qualifications: Master’s degree from a program accredited by the American Library Association or foreign equivalent required; 3-5 years academic library experience in digitization and digital assets management, including experience with systems such as DigiTool, CONTENTdm, Fedora, DSpace, or others. Applicants should have experience providing customer service and technical support for DAMS and other digital resources, good working knowledge of library systems and procedures (particularly metadata and cataloging standards), exemplary interpersonal and communication skills, and an understanding of database systems and/or UNIX/Linux file structures and systems management. Experience with archives, special collections, and institutional records is preferred.