*ARL Urges Elsevier to Revise Policy That Impedes Sharing of Scholarship; *Introducing the New ACRL Annual Survey – Opens September 18; *Now Accepting Applications for RBS Scholarships and IMLS-RBS Fellowships; *National Archives Releases New Guidance on Metadata For Electronic Records; *WC3 Releases Updated Working Draft of Web Accessibility Guidelines; *Library Attendance Has Dropped in the Last Year: Pew; *Public Library of Science (PLOS) Publishes 2014-2015 “Progress Update” *OCLC to launch linked data pilot with seven leading libraries; *Roper Center public opinion archive comes to Cornell; *Taylor & Francis Online Announces Enhancements to Reader Experience; plus more corporate and publishing news from a variety of sources
ARL Urges Elsevier to Revise Policy That Impedes Sharing of Scholarship
According to this ARL post “because Elsevier has not changed their new policy (the new sharing and hosting policy for Elsevier journals) nor indicated an interest in doing so, ARL president Deborah Jakubs sent a letter to Elsevier chairman Youngsuk Chi late last week on behalf of the ARL Board and ARL member libraries, which represent the interests of more than 200,000 faculty and 3.6 million students at universities in the US and Canada. The letter urged Chi “to consider the negative impact that this policy will have on researchers and scholars who wish to utilize all tools to the greatest advantage in the conduct of their research in order to advance scientific discovery…”
Introducing the New ACRL Annual Survey – Opens September 18
Since 1999 the ACRL Academic Library Trends and Statistics Survey has gathered statistics at the national level from all types of academic libraries in the United States and Canada. The survey is developed and overseen by the ACRL Academic Library Trends and Statistics Editorial Board. Earlier this year, the ACRL Board approved a recommendation from the Editorial Board that ACRL create and administer its own survey instrument to make it more relevant and responsive to the needs of academic libraries. Formerly, ACRL had been using the Association of Research Libraries survey instrument with permission. Following a ten-month development process involving scores of librarians and opportunities for review and feedback, the ACRL Annual Survey has been overhauled and will open on September 18, 2015, to collect data for the 2015 fiscal year. Fiscal year 2015 is defined as the most recent 12-month period that ends before October 1, 2015.
Now Accepting Applications for RBS Scholarships and IMLS-RBS Fellowships
Applications are now being “accepted for the 2015 scholarship cycle. Applications are now open for all RBS-awarded scholarships (for both first-time and returning RBS students) and for the IMLS-RBS Fellowships for Early-Career Librarians. For general queries about scholarships or fellowships, see the FAQs page. Participation in the scholarship/fellowship program implies acceptance of the scholarship Terms and Conditions…
The application deadline for RBS-awarded scholarships and for the IMLS-RBS Fellowship is Friday, 30 October 2015 at 5 p.m. EDT…”
National Archives Releases New Guidance on Metadata For Electronic Records
According to infoDOCKET the National Archive has issued new guidance for Federal agencies on minimum metadata requirements for transferring permanent electronic records to NARA.
NARA Bulletin 2015-04: Metadata Guidance for the Transfer of Permanent Electronic Records, describes the minimum set of metadata elements that must accompany permanent electronic records transferred to NARA. This Bulletin was written with feedback from a wide variety of stakeholders, including OMB, the Federal Records Council, Federal agencies, and the public. We appreciate everyone’s input on this policy document.
WC3 Releases Updated Working Draft of Web Accessibility Guidelines
infoDOCKET also reports from WC3 that “the User Agent Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (UAWG) has published updated Working Drafts of User Agent Accessibility Guidelines (UAAG) 2.0 and UAAG 2.0 Reference: Explanations, Examples, and Resources for User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 2.0.
UAAG 2.0 guides developers in designing user agents that make the web more accessible to people with disabilities. User agents include browsers, media players and applications that render web content…”
Library Attendance Has Dropped in the Last Year: Pew
GalleyCat reports that according to a recent survey by the Pew Center “while most people in the United States think that libraries are an important part of the community, less Americans are visiting libraries than three years ago, according to a new report from Pew Research Center.
The survey found that 65 percent of U.S. citizens ages 16 and older say that closing their local public library would have a major impact on their community. Still less people are actually using the facilities.
In fact, only 46 percent of all Americans ages 16 and over visited a library or a bookmobile in- person in the last year. This figure is down from the 48 percent of people who reported visiting a library back in 2013, and down 53 percent from those surveyed in 2012…”
(For a more in depth highlights and a link to the full study see infoDOCKET’s New Pew Report: “Libraries at the Crossroads”, Includes Data About Ebook Usage.)
Kudos wins ALPSP Award for Innovation in Publishing
According to KnowledgeSpeak “Kudos, which helps maximize the reach and impact of research publications, has been awarded the 2015 ALPSP Award for Innovation in Publishing. The award was presented at the ALPSP International Conference at London Heathrow. The award was collected by the three co-founders of Kudos: David Sommer, Melinda Kenneway and Charlie Rapple…”
More than 80,000 geological maps added to Elsevier’s Geofacets platform
In addition, KnowledgeSpeak reports that “STM publisher Elsevier has announced that select content from some of the American Geophysical Union’s (AGU) leading journals is now available in Geofacets. This addition of 80,000 maps will further increase the amount of essential geological information in the database, helping geoscientists make more informed interpretations and gain greater confidence in their recommendations and decisions regarding investments in new exploration opportunities…”
Public Library of Science (PLOS) Publishes 2014-2015 “Progress Update”
infoDOCKET also notes that “each year PLOS releases a Progress Update, an annual overview of innovations, activities and journal highlights that provide insight into how the organization is moving scientific communication and discovery forward…
This year “the PLOS Progress Update is available online with complete source links in a low-resolution version (2MB) or without links in a high-resolution version (45MB) for download to view or print…”
OCLC to launch linked data pilot with seven leading libraries
“OCLC is working with seven leading libraries in a pilot program designed to learn more about how linked data will influence library workflows in the future…
The pilot will begin in September and is expected to last several months. The seven participating libraries include Cornell University, Harvard University, the Library of Congress, the National Library of Medicine, the National Library of Poland, Stanford University and the University of California, Davis…”
Roper Center public opinion archive comes to Cornell
“The Roper Center for Public Opinion Research – the world’s largest public opinion archive – will move from the University of Connecticut to Ithaca, where it will be known as the Roper Center at Cornell University, and casually as Roper@Cornell, on Nov. 7…”
Taylor & Francis Online Announces Enhancements to Reader Experience
ResourceShelf reports that “Taylor & Francis Online announces a range of developments to enhance readers’ and researchers’ online reading experience. The changes aim to take reading PDFs beyond a print-like experience by making the most of what the web has to offer. They combine Interact, a reimagined PDF which is currently rolling out across Taylor & Francis’ journals; a cleaner, clearer cover sheet for PDF articles; and, using, the external expertise of colwiz, interactive tools to allow readers to annotate articles, quickly find referenced articles with clickable citations, and discover relevant content…”
More corporate and publishing news from a variety of sources
Oklahoma State University chooses Ex Libris Rosetta for digital preservation;
Taipei American School implements EBSCO Discovery Service to meet students’ technology needs;
Odilo Announces Partnership With Canada’s eBound;
IMLS awards grants to OCLC
ProQuest Collaborations improve discovery and access of dissertations
EBSCO and BibLibre Collaborate on Open Source Software
Elsevier in deal to resell HCPro’s HIPAA and Corporate Compliance content to hospitals and health systems across the US;
Future Science Group announces new partnership, ensures free access to eight key oncology journals
Taylor & Francis Group and the Institute of Atmospheric Physics announce new publishing partnership;