CoHSL-list December 2010

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9 discussions

Descriptive Cataloging of Rare Materials (Graphics): Full draft available for review

by KALAMOS BOOKS

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Erin Blake <EBlake(a)folger.edu> Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2010 11:47:07 -0500 With apologies, I've just realized that the following invitation to comment on DCRM(G), from the chair of the RBMS Bibliographic Standards Committee, should probably have been sent as well as to the graphic materials and rare book cataloging listservs. Better late than never? Comments should be made by January 3, if at all possible, to give time to consider them in preparation for the hearing on January 8. Comments on the draft should be submitted via the "public review" version of the document in the link below, a DigressIt blog that groups comments and responses point by point. Thanks, and please let me know if you have any questions. Erin. (eblake(a)folger.edu) -----Original Message----- From: dcrm-l-bounces(a)lib.byu.edu [mailto:dcrm-l-bounces@lib.byu.edu] On Behalf Of Stephen A Skuce Sent: Tuesday, December 14, 2010 10:28 AM To: dcrm-l(a)lib.byu.edu Subject: [DCRM-L] DCRM (Graphics): Full draft available for review Hello, I'm very pleased to announce that a full draft of Descriptive Cataloging of Rare Materials (Graphics) is now available for review and comment. The editors are making available both a pdf of the document and a "public review" version utilizing DigressIt, which allows for comments at the level of specific paragraphs, rules, and examples. Comments are encouraged and are extremely welcome from individuals (or organizations) whether they have extensive experience or absolutely no experience with graphic materials. In addition to accommodating comments, the public review version of the document also contains, within some example texts, links to images of actual materials that illustrate the specific example and rule. DCRM(G) is also the first DCRM to incorporate "RDA alternatives" into the rules. This draft is being made available in preparation for a public hearing on DCRM(G) to be held at the ALA Midwinter Meeting in San Diego, at 7:30 pm on January 8, 2011. All interested parties are encouraged to comment on the draft, attend the public hearing, or better still, do both. (All comments on the draft should be submitted via the "public review" version of the document.) The editors have worked very hard, and very quickly, to get Version 6.0 ready for review. A few things they'd like to point out: -- Some appendices are unpolished. Appendix C, currently titled "BIBCO Standard Records" is very likely to change substantially, and move toward a new "DCRM Core" record instead. -- Appendix B, "Collection-Level Records," lacks examples for extra-illustrated books cataloged as collections. These will be incorporated later. -- As with all DCRM publications, examples have been tough. A "[B]" preface to an example denotes a DCRM(B) placeholder example; a "[GM]" preface denotes an unverified example from Graphic Materials. Both versions of the draft -- "Version: 6.0" -- are available on the Bibliographic Standards Committee website, here: http://rbms.info/committees/bibliographic_standards/dcrm/dcrmg/dcrmg.htm l The DCRM(G) editors are: Erin C. Blake, Chair Ellen R. Cordes James Eason Mary Mundy Lenore M. Rouse Joe Springer Helena Zinkham Our congratulations to them. And to you -- in advance -- our thanks for submitting comments on this draft of a much-anticipated document. Stephen Skuce Chair, RBMS Bibliographic Standards Committee Program Manager for Rare Books Institute Archives and Special Collections MIT Room 14N-118 77 Mass. Ave. Cambridge MA 02139-4307 617.253.0654 <end forwarded message> -------------------------------------------------- Erin C. Blake, Ph.D. | Curator of Art & Special Collections | Folger Shakespeare Library | 201 E. Capitol St. SE | Washington, DC 20003-1004 | office tel. (202) 675-0323 | fax: (202) 675-0328 | eblake(a)folger.edu | www.folger.edu

13 years, 4 months

Job Announcement: Lake Conservator for Houghton Library

by KALAMOS BOOKS

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: "Overholt, John" <overholt(a)fas.harvard.edu> Lake Conservator for Houghton Library Reporting to the Preservation Librarian for Houghton Library, the incumbent serves as book conservator for Houghton Library. The Conservator treats a broad range of rare books and manuscripts (bound and unbound). Typical duties are: * Serves as the conservator for Houghton Library, HCL's main repository for special collections * Treats the Library's book and paper collections, on site and at the Weissman Preservation Center * Examines, specifies treatments in consultation with curators, and treats bound and flat collection materials, including rare cloth, paper, parchment, and leather bindings, parchment text blocks, and manuscripts with iron gall ink * Reviews and treats materials for the Library's use-driven Quick Repair program, patron requested photography orders, and exhibitions * Reviews, treats, and prepares materials for loans, including constructing enclosures for crating, condition checking, organizing and packing materials for transit, couriering, installing, and deinstalling Qualifications: * Bachelor's degree and a graduate degree in conservation required * Two years of experience working in a rare book conservation facility or extended, formal apprenticeship under a conservator required * The incumbent must have a strong knowledge of the history of book structure; and bookbinding, printing, writing, and papermaking materials and techniques * Working knowledge of chemistry and materials science; disaster planning, response, and mitigation Please note that we will be accepting applications until Friday, January 7, 2011. To see full job description and apply, please submit a cover letter and resume to: Harvard Employment Site<https://sjobs.brassring.com/1033/asp/tg/cim_jobdetail.asp?jobId=760442&Part…> For salary range, see grade 056 here: http://www.employment.harvard.edu/benefits/compensation/index.shtml Harvard University is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer. John Overholt Assistant Curator The Donald and Mary Hyde Collection of Dr. Samuel Johnson/ Early Modern Books and Manuscripts Houghton Library Harvard University http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/hydeblog/ http://twitter.com/john_overholt

13 years, 4 months

Academic/research librarians with subject doctorates: update

by KALAMOS BOOKS

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: "Gilman, Todd" <todd.gilman(a)yale.edu> Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2010 11:55:34 -0500 Dear Colleagues, In September 2006, we invited librarians on this list who were working in academic/research libraries and hold a doctorate in a discipline other than LIS to participate in an online survey. Many survey respondents requested that we post information about the article's publication back to the listserv. We are pleased to report that the second of two articles appeared in the current issue of the journal portal: Libraries and the Academy. As some of you will recall, the first article focused upon survey respondents' demographic profile, educational background, paths into librarianship, and range of positions currently held. The current follow-up piece concentrates on their experiences in the workplace and views about the advantages and disadvantages of academic librarianship as a career: "Academic/Research Librarians with Subject Doctorates: Experiences and Perceptions, 1965-2006." portal: Libraries and the Academy 10, no. 4 (October 2010): 399-412. Those whose institutions subscribe to portal can see the current article here: HTML: http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/portal_libraries_and_the_academy/v010/10.4.gil… PDF: http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/portal_libraries_and_the_academy/v010/10.4.gil… Additionally, for those who missed the first article, here's the citation: "Academic/Research Librarians with Subject Doctorates: Data and Trends 1965-2006." portal: Libraries and the Academy 8, no. 1 (January 2008): 31-52. Those whose institutions subscribe to portal can see the first article here: HTML: http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/portal_libraries_and_the_academy/v008/8.1lindq… PDF: http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/portal_libraries_and_the_academy/v008/8.1lindq… Many thanks to everyone who responded to our survey! The data we gathered allowed us to write the first two in-depth articles on academic librarians with subject doctorates based on their own experiences. Best wishes, Todd Gilman, Librarian for Literature in English, Yale University Library & Thea Lindquist, Associate Faculty Director for Collections Services, Research, and Instruction, University of Colorado at Boulder Libraries

13 years, 4 months

Palmer School LIU seeks faculty for rare book program

by KALAMOS BOOKS

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Deirdre Stam <Deirdre.Stam(a)liu.edu> Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2010 13:31:51 -0500 (This is a preliminary notice. Please contact Linda Ryan [see below] to express interest. An announcement in the HR department will soon be available. -- DCS) The Palmer School of Library and Information Science of Long Island University seeks a faculty member who will also serve as coordinator for its well-established Rare Book and Special Collections concentration. In addition to teaching in this subject area, the successful candidate will coordinate the concentration, administer the School's several cooperative arrangements with other rare books programs, and participate fully in the academic life of the Palmer School. For the rare book and special collections specialty (which is centered at the School's site in Manhattan), a broad knowledge of book history, the physical "book" in its many forms, printed ephemera, printing history, cultural archives, publishing and distribution history, and current digital initiatives in this sub-field is essential. A record of professional activity within the rare book and special collections field and among its institutions is also necessary. Additionally, the candidate should be prepared to teach general courses in the library and information science field and to pursue a research agenda appropriate to the programs of the Palmer School. In addition to a Ph.D., the ideal candidate will possess a MLS and/or significant employment history in a rare book/special collections library. This opening is occuring because of the retirement of the current incumbent in August, 2011. The Palmer School is based on the C.W. Post campus of Long Island University in Brookville, N.Y. and also offers programs in Manhattan, Westchester and Brentwood, N.Y. The School has a full-time faculty of twelve and offers a Master's in Library and Information Science, as well as a Ph.D. in Information Science. The School has approximately 325 FTE Master's students and 60 FTE doctoral students. About the University: "In its ninth decade of providing access to the American dream through excellence in higher education, Long Island University is a one of the largest and most comprehensive private universities in the country, offering 590 undergraduate, graduate and doctoral degree programs." Rank and salary commensurate with experience. Minimum starting salary by rank: Full Time full professor annual $90,080 Full Time Associate professor annual $79,273 Full Time Assistant professor annual $72,089 Full Time Instructor professor annual $64,857 To express interest, contact: Linda M. Ryan (M.L.S., J.D.), Director, Palmer School of Library and Information Science, Long Island University 720 Northern Blvd., Brookville, NY 11548-1327 516.299.4109 linda.ryan(a)liu.edu

13 years, 4 months

RBMS Regional Workshop: Building Collections: Acquiring Materials and Working with the Antiquarian Book Trade

by KALAMOS BOOKS

Gillis, Jane <jane.gillis(a)yale.edu> Wed, Dec 8, 2010 at 4:06 PM RBMS Regional Workshop: Building Collections: Acquiring Materials and Working with the Antiquarian Book Trade Thursday, February 10, 2011, 9:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. University of California, Berkeley C. V. Starr East Asian Library, Saul and Sherry Yeung Art History Seminar Room Berkeley, California The workshop is primarily intended for librarians working at all types of institutions and with all levels of budgets who are responsible for acquisition and collection development of special collections materials. The session will also be of interest to individual collectors and dealers. The purpose is to provide attendees with practical information which can be utilized for building collections and developing beneficial relationships with members of the antiquarian book trade. Although the emphasis will be on printed materials, manuscripts and archives will also be discussed. The workshop will include the context and history of special collections, collection development, and institutional interaction with the trade, particularly in the United States. Practical matters will include materials on the market, auctions, online sources, comparing prices, purchasing collections, deaccessioning, and provenance issues. A full reading list will be provided. Presenters: E.C. Schroeder, Head of Technical Services, Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University) Daniel J. Slive, Head of Special Collections, Bridwell Library, Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University Registration: Deadline is January 14, 2011. Limited to 30 participants. Register online at: http://www.acrl.org/ala/mgrps/divs/acrl/events/buildingcollections.cfm Fees: ACRL member - $189 Nonmember - $239 Questions: Contact Jane Gillis, Yale University Library, Jane.gillis(a)yale.edu<mailto:Jane.gillis@yale.edu> or 203-432-2633 Jane Jane Gillis Chair, RBMS Regional Workshops Committee Rare Book Cataloger Yale University Library jane.gillis(a)yale.edu phone: 203-432-2633 fax: 203-432-4047 -- June Samaras KALAMOS BOOKS (For Books about Greece) 2020 Old Station Rd Streetsville,Ontario Canada L5M 2V1 Tel : 905-542-1877 E-mail : kalamosbooks(a)gmail.com www.kalamosbooks.com http://kalamosb.alibrisstore.com/ http://www.antiqbook.com/books/bookseller.phtml/kal

13 years, 4 months

The Library: Three Jeremiads

by KALAMOS BOOKS

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/dec/23/library-three-jeremiad… The Library: Three Jeremiads December 23, 2010 Robert Darnton When I look back at the plight of American research libraries in 2010, I feel inclined to break into a jeremiad. In fact, I want to deliver three jeremiads, because research libraries are facing crises on three fronts; but instead of prophesying doom, I hope to arrive at a happy ending. I can even begin happily, at least in describing the state of the university library at Harvard. True, the economic crisis hit us hard, so hard that we must do some fundamental reorganizing, but we can take measures to make a great library greater, and we can put our current difficulties into perspective by seeing them in the light of a long history. Having begun in 1638 with the 400 books in John Harvard’s library, we now have accumulated nearly 17 million volumes and 400 million manuscript and archival items scattered through 45,000 distinct collections. I could string out the statistics indefinitely. We collect in more than 350 languages and many different formats. We have 12.8 million digital files, more than 100,000 serials, nearly 10 million photographs, online records of 3.4 million zoological specimens, and endlessly rich special collections, including the largest library of Chinese works outside of China (with the exception of the Library of Congress) and more Ukrainian titles than exist in Ukraine. We want to make it possible for other people to consult those collections by digitizing large portions of them and making them available, free of charge, to the rest of the world from an online repository. We group the material around themes such as women at work, immigration, epidemics and disease control, Islamic heritage, and scientific explorations—2.3 million pages in all. This Open Collections Program, as we call it, is part of a general policy of opening up our library to the outside world and sharing our intellectual wealth. The latest project is devoted to reading, its practices and history. It involved the digitization of more than 250,000 pages from manuscripts and rare books, including richly annotated works such as Melville’s copy of Emerson’s essays and Keats’s copy of Shakespeare. California / Rebecca Solnit There are few places aside from research libraries where rare books and e-books can be brought together. At Harvard we use combinations of them for teaching as well as research. I now teach a seminar on the history of books in our rare book library. It begins with Gutenberg. The students investigate the origins of printing by examining a Gutenberg Bible, the real thing, and they do not just stare at it from a respectful distance, but they are invited to leaf (carefully) through its pages in order to appreciate the varieties of rubrication and typographical design. The seminar ends in a high-tech lab on the bottom floor of Widener Library, where experts in digitization explain how to adjust nuances of color while scanning medieval manuscripts. Despite financial pressure, we therefore are advancing on two fronts, the digital and the analog. People often talk about printed books as if they were extinct. I have been invited to so many conferences on “The Death of the Book” that I suspect it is very much alive. In fact, more printed books are produced each year than the year before. Soon there will be a million new titles published worldwide each year. A research library cannot ignore this production on the grounds that our readers are now “digital natives” living in a new “information age.” If the history of books teaches anything, it is that one medium does not displace another, at least not in the short run. Manuscript publishing continued to thrive for three centuries after Gutenberg, because it was often cheaper to produce a small edition by hiring scribes than by printing it. The codex—a book with pages that you turn rather than a scroll that you read by unrolling—is one of the greatest inventions of all time. It has served well for two thousand years, and it is not about to become extinct. In fact, it may be that the new technology used in print-on-demand will breathe new life into the codex—and I say this with due respect to the Kindle, the iPad, and all the rest. But without neglecting our collections of printed books, we must forge ahead on the other, the digital front. Our purchases of e-resources increased by 25 percent at Harvard last year. We are expanding our enormous Digital Repository Service in a campaign not just to save digital texts but to help solve the problem of preserving them. A new Library Lab is inventing techniques for digital browsing and the preservation of e-mail, websites, and born-digital archives. Our open-access repository, DASH, is making current articles by Harvard faculty available online and free of charge throughout the world. And we plan to collaborate with MIT in building joint digital collections. In short, we are looking far ahead into the twenty-first century, and we hope to help shape the information society of the future. Still, there is no disguising the fact that research libraries are going through hard times—times so hard that they are inflicting serious damage on the entire world of learning. We face three especially difficult problems, which I would like to discuss by drawing on my own experience, recounted in the form of three jeremiads. Jeremiad 1 In 1998 I had my first encounter with a problem that now pervades the academic world. It can be described as a vicious circle: the escalation in the price of periodicals forces libraries to cut back on their purchase of monographs; the drop in the demand for monographs makes university presses reduce their publication of them; and the difficulty in getting them published creates barriers to careers among graduate students. Although librarians have lived with this problem for decades, faculty are only dimly aware of its existence—not surprisingly, because libraries pay for the journals, professors don’t. When this problem first dawned on me as chairman of Princeton’s library committee in the 1980s, the price of journals had already increased far more than the inflation rate; and the disparity has continued until today. In 1974 the average cost of a subscription to a journal was $54.86. In 2009 it came to $2,031 for a US title and $4,753 for a non-US title, an increase greater than ten times that of inflation. Between 1986 and 2005, the prices for institutional subscriptions to journals rose 302 percent, while the consumer price index went up by 68 percent. Faced with this disparity, libraries have had to adjust the proportions of their acquisitions budgets. As a rule, they used to spend about half of their funds on serials and half on monographs. By 2000 many libraries were spending three quarters of their budget on serials. Some had nearly stopped buying monographs altogether or had eliminated them in certain fields. Another rule of thumb used to prevail among the better university presses. They could count on research libraries purchasing about eight hundred copies of any new monograph. By 2000 that figure had fallen to three or four hundred, often less, and not enough in most cases to cover production costs. Therefore, the presses abandoned subjects like colonial Latin America and Africa. They fell back on books about local folklore or cooking or birds, works that fit into niches or could be marketed to a broader public but that had little to do with scholarly research. And graduate students fell victim to the notorious syndrome of publish or perish. As president of the American Historical Association in 1999, I thought I could do something, at least in a small way, to reverse this trend. I persuaded the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to finance a program, called Gutenberg-e, that would award prizes to the best Ph.D. theses in the most endangered fields. The prize money would subsidize the cost of converting the dissertations into books, books of a new kind, electronic books that would take advantage of the new technology to incorporate all sorts of new elements—film clips, recordings, images, and whole collections of documents. The originality and the quality of these e-books would legitimate a new form of scholarly communication and revive the monograph. One of the first questions that the people at Mellon asked me was “What is your business plan?” Although I had never heard of a business plan, I soon began to appreciate the economic conditions of scholarship. Columbia University Press developed a program to sell the e-books to research libraries as a package for a moderate subscription price. The libraries responded favorably, but the scholars had difficulty in producing their books on time, the pipeline became clogged, and the delayed output hurt sales. In the end, after seven years of struggle, we produced a fine series of thirty-five books, and we had begun to cover our costs. But Columbia, like many university presses, came under severe financial pressure. It decided that it could not continue the series after the Mellon grant ran out. The books were assimilated into the Humanities E-Book program developed by the American Council of Learned Societies, and they are still available online. But Gutenberg-e did not open up an escape route from the problems of sustainability that were plaguing academic life. Jeremiad 2 A few years later, “sustainability” had become a buzz word, and the inflationary spiral of journal prices had continued unabated. In 2007 I became director of the Harvard University Library, a strategic position from which to take the full measure of the business constraints on academic life. Although economic conditions had worsened, the faculty’s understanding of them had not improved. How many professors in chemistry can give you even a ballpark estimate of the cost of a year’s subscription to Tetrahedron (currently $39,082)? Who in medical schools has the foggiest notion of the price of The Journal of Comparative Neurology ($27,465)? What physicist can come up with a reasonable guess about the average price of a journal in physics ($3,368), and who in the humanities can compare that with the average price of a journal in language and literature ($275) or philosophy and religion ($300)? Librarians who buy these subscriptions for the use of faculty and students can shower you with statistics. In 2009, Elsevier, the giant publisher of scholarly journals based in the Netherlands, made a $1.1 billion profit in its publishing division, yet 2009 was a disastrous year for library budgets. Harvard’s seventy-three libraries cut their expenditures by more than 10 percent, and other libraries suffered even greater reductions, but the journal publishers were not impressed. Many of them raised their prices by 5 percent and sometimes more. This year, the publishers of the several Nature journals announced that they were increasing the cost of subscriptions for libraries in the University of California by 400 percent. Profit margins of journal publishers in the fields of science, technology, and medicine recently ran to 30–40 percent; yet those publishers add very little value to the research process, and most of the research is ultimately funded by American taxpayers through the National Institutes of Health and other organizations. University libraries have little defense against excessive pricing. If they cancel a subscription, the faculty protest about being cut off from the circulation of knowledge, and the publishers impose drastic cancellation fees. Those fees are written into contracts, which often cover “bundles” of journals, sometimes hundreds of them, over a period of several years. The contracts provide for annual increases in the cost of the bundle, even though a library’s budget may decrease; and the publishers usually insist on keeping the terms secret, so that one library cannot negotiate for cheaper rates by citing an advantage obtained by another library. A recent court case in the state of Washington makes it seem possible that publishers will no longer be able to prevent the circulation of information about their contracts. But they continue to sell subscriptions in bundles. If in negotiating the renewal of a contract a library attempts to unbundle the offer in order to eliminate the least desirable journals, the publishers commonly raise the prices of the other journals so much that the total cost remains the same. While prices continued to spiral upward, professors became entrapped in another kind of vicious circle, unaware of the unintended consequences. Reduced to essentials, it goes like this: we academics devote ourselves to research; we write up the results as articles for journals; we referee the articles in the process of peer reviewing; we serve on the editorial boards of the journals; we also serve as editors (all of this unpaid, of course); and then we buy back our own work at ruinous prices in the form of journal subscriptions—not that we pay for it ourselves, of course; we expect our library to pay for it, and therefore we have no knowledge of our complicity in a disastrous system. Professors expect services from their libraries, even if they never set foot in them and consult Tetrahedron or The Journal of Comparative Neurology from computers in their labs. A few, however, have stared the problem in the face and seized it by the horns. In 2001 scientists at Stanford and Berkeley circulated a petition calling for their colleagues to submit articles only to open-access journals—that is, journals that made them available from digital repositories free of charge, either immediately or after a delay. The effectiveness of such journals had been proven by BioMed Central, a British enterprise, which had been publishing a whole series of them since 1999. Led by Harold Varmus, a Nobel laureate who is now director of the National Cancer Institute, American researchers allied with the Public Library of Science founded their own series, beginning with PLoS Biology in 2003. Foundations provided start-up funding, and ongoing publication costs were covered by the research grants received by the authors of the articles. Thanks to rigorous peer review and the prestige of the authors, the PLoS publications were a great success. According to citation indexes and statistics of hits, open-access journals were consulted more frequently than most commercial publications. By 2008, when the National Institutes of Health required the recipients of its grants to make their work available through open access—although it permitted an embargo of up to twelve months—cracks were appearing everywhere in the commercial monopoly of publishing in the medical sciences. But what could be done in all the other disciplines, especially those in the humanities and social sciences, where grants are not so generous, if they exist at all? Several universities passed resolutions in favor of open access and established digital repositories for articles, but the compliance rate of the professors, often 4 percent or less, made them look ineffective. At Harvard we developed a new model. By a unanimous vote on February 12, 2008, professors in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences bound themselves to deposit all of their future scholarly articles in an open-access repository to be established by the library and also granted the university permission to distribute them. This arrangement had an escape clause: anyone could refuse to comply by obtaining a waiver, which would be granted automatically. In this way, professors retained the liberty to publish in closed-access journals, which might refuse to accept an article available elsewhere on open access or might require an embargo. This model has now spread to other faculties at Harvard and to other universities, but it is not a business model. If the monopolies of price-gouging publishers are to be broken, we need more than open-access repositories. We need open-access journals that will be self-sustaining. A supplementary program at Harvard now subsidizes publishing fees for articles submitted to open-access journals, up to a yearly limit, for each professor. The idea is to reverse the economics of journal publishing by covering costs, rationally determined, at the production end instead of by paying for an exorbitant profit in addition to the production costs at the consumption end. If other universities adopt the same policy and if professors apply pressure on editorial boards, journals will shift, little by little, one after the other, to open access. The Compact for Open-Access Publishing Equity (COPE), launched this year, is an attempt to create a coalition of universities to push journal publishing in this direction. It also envisages subsidies for authors who cannot expect financial help from grants or their home universities. If COPE succeeds, it could save billions of dollars in library budgets. But it will only succeed in the long run. Meanwhile, the prices of commercial journals continue to rise, and the balance sheets of university presses continue to sink into the red. In 2003 Walter Lippincott, the director of Princeton University Press, predicted that twenty-five of the eighty-two university presses in the United States would disappear within five years. They are still alive, but they are barely holding on by their fingernails. They may find a second life by publishing online and by taking advantage of technological innovations such as the Espresso Book Machine. This can download an electronic text from a database, print it out within four minutes, and make it available at a moderate price as an instant print-on-demand paperback. But just when this glimmer of hope appeared on the horizon, it was overshadowed by the most powerful technological innovation of them all: relevance-ranking search engines linked to gigantic databases, as in the case of Google Book Search, which is already providing readers with access to millions of books. This brings me to Jeremiad 3. Jeremiad 3 Google represents the ultimate in business plans. By controlling access to information, it has made billions, which it is now investing in the control of the information itself. What began as Google Book Search is therefore becoming the largest library and book business in the world. Like all commercial enterprises, Google’s primary responsibility is to make money for its shareholders. Libraries exist to get books to readers—books and other forms of knowledge and entertainment, provided for free. The fundamental incompatibility of purpose between libraries and Google Book Search might be mitigated if Google could offer libraries access to its digitized database of books on reasonable terms. But the terms are embodied in a 368-page document known as the “settlement,” which is meant to resolve another conflict: the suit brought against Google by authors and publishers for alleged infringement of their copyrights. Despite its enormous complexity, the settlement comes down to an agreement about how to divide a pie—the profits to be produced by Google Book Search: 37 percent will go to Google, 63 percent to the authors and publishers. And the libraries? They are not partners to the agreement, but many of them have provided, free of charge, the books that Google has digitized. They are being asked to buy back access to those books along with those of their sister libraries, in digitized form, for an “institutional subscription” price, which could escalate as disastrously as the price of journals. The subscription price will be set by a Book Rights Registry, which will represent the authors and publishers who have an interest in price increases. Libraries therefore fear what they call “cocaine pricing”—a strategy of beginning at a low rate and then, when customers are hooked, ratcheting up the price as high as it will go. To become effective, the settlement must be approved by the district court in the Southern Federal District of New York. The Department of Justice has filed two memoranda with the court that raise the possibility, indeed the likelihood, that the settlement could give Google such an advantage over potential competitors as to violate antitrust laws. But the most important issue looming over the legal debate is one of public policy. Do we want to settle copyright questions by private litigation? And do we want to commercialize access to knowledge? I hope that the answer to those questions will lead to my happy ending: a National Digital Library—or a Digital Public Library of America (DPLA), as some prefer to call it. Google demonstrated the possibility of transforming the intellectual riches of our libraries, books lying inert and underused on shelves, into an electronic database that could be tapped by anyone anywhere at any time. Why not adapt its formula for success to the public good—a digital library composed of virtually all the books in our greatest research libraries available free of charge to the entire citizenry, in fact, to everyone in the world? To dismiss this goal as naive or utopian would be to ignore digital projects that have proven their worth and feasibility throughout the last twenty years. All major research libraries have digitized parts of their collections. Since 1995 the Digital Library Federation has worked to combine their catalogues or “metadata” into a general network. More ambitious enterprises such as the Internet Archive, Knowledge Commons, and Public.Resource .Org have attempted digitization on a larger scale. They may be dwarfed by Google, but several countries are now determined to out-Google Google by scanning the entire contents of their national libraries. In December 2009 President Nicolas Sarkozy of France announced that he would make €750 million available for digitizing the French cultural “patrimony.” The National Library of the Netherlands aims to digitize within ten years every Dutch book, newspaper, and periodical produced from 1470 to the present. National libraries in Japan, Australia, Norway, and Finland are digitizing virtually all of their holdings; and Europeana, an effort to coordinate digital collections on an international scale, will have made over ten million objects—from libraries, archives, museums, and audiovisual holdings—freely accessible online by the end of 2010. If these countries can create national digital libraries, why can’t the United States? Because of the cost, some would argue. Far more works exist in English than in Dutch or Japanese, and the Library of Congress alone contains 30 million volumes. Estimates of the cost of digitizing one page vary enormously, from ten cents (the figure cited by Brewster Kahle, who has digitized over a million books for the Internet Archive) to ten dollars, depending on the technology and the required quality. But it should be possible to digitize everything in the Library of Congress for less than Sarkozy’s €750 million—and the cost could be spread out over a decade. The greatest obstacle is legal, not financial. Presumably, the DPLA would exclude books currently being marketed, but it would include millions of books that are out of print yet covered by copyright, especially those published between 1923 and 1964, a period when copyright coverage is most obscure, owing to the proliferation of “orphans”—books whose copyright holders have not been located. Congress would have to pass legislation to protect the DPLA from litigation concerning copyrighted, out-of-print books. The rights holders of those books would have to be compensated, yet many of them, especially among academic authors, might be willing to forgo compensation in order to give their books new life and greater diffusion in digitized form. Several authors protested against the commercial character of Google Book Search and expressed their readiness to make their work available free of charge in memoranda filed with the New York District Court. Perhaps even Google itself could be enlisted in the cause. It has digitized about two million books in the public domain. It could turn them over to the DPLA as the foundation of a collection that would grow to include more recent books—at first those from the problematic period of 1923–1964, then those made available by their rights holders. Google would lose nothing by this generosity; each digitized book that it made available could, if other donors agree, be identified as a contribution from Google; and it might win admiration for its public-spiritedness. Even if Google refused to cooperate, a coalition of foundations could provide enough to finance the DPLA, and a coalition of research libraries could provide the books. By working systematically through their holdings, a great collection could be formed. It would conform to the highest standards in its bibliographical apparatus, its scanning, its editorial decisions, and its commitment to preservation for the use of future generations. Should the Google Book Search agreement not be upheld by the court, its unraveling would come at an extraordinary moment in the development of an information society. We have now reached a period of fluidity, uncertainty, and opportunity. Things have come undone, and they can be put together in new ways, subordinating private profit to the public good and providing everyone with access to a commonwealth of culture. Would a Digital Public Library of America solve all the other problems—the inflation of journal prices, the economics of scholarly publishing, the unbalanced budgets of libraries, and the barriers to the careers of young scholars? No. Instead, it would open the way to a general transformation of the landscape in what we now call the information society. Rather than better business plans (not that they don’t matter), we need a new ecology, one based on the public good instead of private gain. This may not be a satisfactory conclusion. It’s not an answer to the problem of sustainability. It’s an appeal to change the system. —November 23, 2010

13 years, 4 months

MGSA Symposium 2011

by Leich, Harold M.

Dear All, Please see the call for papers for the October 13-16, 2011, biennial symposium of the Modern Greek Studies Association in New York. I will organize a panel on library / archival / bibliographic matters if there is interest -- we will need at least 4 presenters (paper givers and a discussant) and a chair. It will have been six years since the last library-related panel was presented at an MGSA symposium (Chicago, 2005). Possible topics for a panel include recent developments at the major Modern Greek collections in North America, a report on the status of a "Modern Greek Resources Project" and the December 2006 meeting at the Gennadius Library in Athens, as well as papers on the development and history of Modern Greek collections at individual libraries. Many libraries have suffered severe budget cutbacks in acquisitions and personnel funding, so in some cases the "recent developments" are not good news, but it might be helpful to hear of creative ways different institutions have handled the cutbacks. I will propose to do a paper on improvements in LC's Modern Greek and Cypriot acquisitions since 2006 and on changes in the acquisitions and cataloging procedures for Greek and Cypriot materials. If you are interested in giving a paper as part of a panel, please get in touch with me by return email or by phone (202/707-2224). You don't need to do the final abstract at this point, but do give me an idea of the topic and approach of your presentation. Note also that if there are not enough people for a separate library panel, individuals do have the option of submitting a proposal for a paper to the program committee, having it accepted or rejected, and if the former, assigned to a panel by the committee. Please note that neither the MGSA or the CoHSL can provide any funding for travel or living expenses in NYC -- it remains to be seen what the official hotel will be and what the rates are. I will keep the list posted on the panel as plans develop. In the meantime, please let me know if you have any questions, Best to all, Harry --------------------------- MGSA SYMPOSIUM 2011 - CALL FOR PAPERS MGSA 2011, the twenty-second biennial international symposium of the Modern Greek Studies Association, will take place October 13-16, 2011 in New York, and will be coordinated by the Hellenic Studies Program at New York University (http://hellenic.as.nyu.edu/page/home) Abstracts for individual papers and proposals for entire panels are invited on any aspect of modern Greek culture, literature, language, history, society, politics, economics, and the arts. Possible Topics for MGSA 2011 include: Interdisciplinary approaches to environmental issues; popular culture and media; cultural change; spaces of cross-cultural and intellectual fertilization between the Hellenic world and the rest of the world; the emergence of new urban and suburban environments; Greek literature in national and post-national contexts; new economies of labor; poverty, economic marginalization, and class relations; Greece and geopolitics in the wider region; Cyprus and interregional relationships; diaspora and transnational Greek worlds; issues of pedagogy and curriculum development, relating to Modern Greek Studies as a field. General Guidelines for Submission: All submissions will be judged by blind review on the basis of their individual merit, even when part of a submitted panel. Abstracts of 300-400 words should be submitted electronically (preferably in MS Word format) to the MGSA Executive Director: Prof. Victor Papacosma: mgsa(a)kent.edu<mailto:mgsa@kent.edu> Abstracts will be evaluated 1) in relation to the innovativeness of the approaches they employ, 2) in terms of their active engagement with the existing literature, and 3) the narrative coherence of their aims and objectives. Abstracts should reflect original work that has not been previously presented or announced in other venues. Previously presented or announced work compromises the blind review process and risks rejection for procedural reasons. Each abstract should explain briefly the scope and focus of the proposed topic, its broader significance for its discipline and the field of Modern Greek Studies, and the methodology employed. Although the decisions of the committee are final, short commentaries on the rationale for rejected abstracts can be provided upon request. Jointly authored abstracts and papers are welcome. Each abstract should be accompanied by a separate page that contains the name(s) of the author(s), affiliation(s), postal and email addresses, and telephone numbers. All papers will have a 20-minute time limit, which will be strictly enforced. Papers of absent authors will not be read at the Symposium under any circumstances. The Program Committee will assign Chairs to all panels. No one may present more than one paper, or act as presenter and commentator on the same panel. Audio-visual requirements should be indicated at the time of submission. Proposals for entire panels of no more than 4 participants may be submitted by the panel organizer in the same manner as individual abstracts and should include a) abstracts and contact information for each of the presenters and b) a panel abstract of 300-400 words by the panel's organizer providing a description of the panel and explaining the connections among the individual papers. In cases where a panel is rejected but an individual paper merits inclusion, this paper will be accepted as an individual entry in the Symposium. Symposium participants are expected to cover their own expenses. There is a small fund available to defray costs for participating graduate students. Abstracts or inquiries may be submitted via email to Prof. Victor Papacosma, MGSA Executive Director: mgsa(a)kent.edu<mailto:mgsa@kent.edu> Deadlines: The deadline for submissions of abstracts for individual papers is 15 January 2011. Deadline for abstracts of organized panels is 30 January 2011. There will be no extensions of the deadlines. Final decisions will be announced by March 2011. Registration and Fees: A pre-registration fee of US $75 for accepted abstracts will be required. All participants must be current members of the MGSA before the Symposium convenes. Specific information about methods of payment for pre-registration fees and MGSA membership will be announced in due course. Program Committee members: Elsa Amanatidou, Chair (Brown University), Athena Athanasiou (Panteio University), Eleni Bastea (The University of New Mexico), Elizabeth Davis (Princeton University), Yiorgos Kalogeras (Aristotle University), Kostis Kornetis (Brown University), Dimitris Papadimitriou (University of Manchester), Eustratios Papaioannou (Brown University), Lidia Santarelli (NYU), George Syrimis (Yale University), Liana Theodoratou (NYU). The Modern Greek Studies Association, founded in 1968, is a US-based, non-profit organization dedicated to the promotion of Modern Greek studies in the United States and Canada. It publishes the Journal of Modern Greek Studies (The Johns Hopkins University Press) and the MGSA Bulletin. Its publications also include the Census of Modern Greek Literature, 1824-1987 (Dia M.L. Philippides, editor) and Greece in Modern Times: An Annotated Bibliography of Works Published in English in Twenty-Two Academic Disciplines during the Twentieth Century (Stratos E. Constantinidis, editor). Information regarding the Association, including membership, may be obtained from the MGSA Executive Director or from the MGSA website at http://www.mgsa.org

13 years, 5 months

Primary Research Group has published the Survey of Library & Museum Digitization Projects

by KALAMOS BOOKS

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: James Moses <primarydat(a)aol.com> Date: Fri, Dec 3, 2010 at 10:39 AM Primary Research Group has published The Survey of Library & Museum Digitization Projects, ISBN 157440-158-0. The nearly 200 page report looks closely at how academic, public and special libraries and museums are digitizing special and other collections. The study is based on detailed data on costs, equipment use, staffing, cataloging, marketing, licensing revenue and other facets of digitization projects from nearly 100 libraries and museums in the United States, the UK, continental Europe, Canada, and Australia. The study covers and presents data separately for digitizers of photographs, film and video, music and audio, text and re-digitization of existing digital mediums. Just a few of the study’s many findings are that: • Digitization budgets come largely through non-budgetary allocations. The library or museum annual budget accounted for only a little over 35% of the overall digitization budget. • Prospects for digitization funding in the United States were much better than prospects outside of the USA; about 28.6% of US survey participants considered the outlook pretty good or excellent while only 5.88% of those from other countries shared this optimism. • The mean annual number of staff hours expended per institution on digitization projects was 2,272 with a range of 0 to 24,000 (or about 12-13 full time employees spending all of their time on digitization projects). • Only 3.45% of institutions sampled have outsourced rights, permissions or copyright management to any third party. • Overall survey participants say that over the past three years they have outsourced close to 27% of their overall digitization work. • Close to 54% of the organizations sampled have some form of digital asset management software and an additional 8.3% share a system with another department or division of their institution. • 14.61% used the servers of some kind of third party service; this was most popular in the USA, where one sixth of respondents used a third party server service for digital content storage. • 16.05% of organizations surveyed license or rent any aspect of their digital collection to any party. • Digitizers whose primary medium was music and audio spent 56.25% of their total digitization staff time on cataloging and metadata related issues. • Data is also broken out by budget size, region, type of institution, and other factors. For further information view our website at www.PrimaryResearch.com -- June Samaras KALAMOS BOOKS (For Books about Greece) 2020 Old Station Rd Streetsville,Ontario Canada L5M 2V1 Tel : 905-542-1877 E-mail : kalamosbooks(a)gmail.com www.kalamosbooks.com http://kalamosb.alibrisstore.com/ http://www.antiqbook.com/books/bookseller.phtml/kal

13 years, 5 months

FINDS OF THE MONTH

by KALAMOS BOOKS

Some special, beautiful and/or interesting books for your library - or for Christmas gifts to friends.... Special 20% discount till Dec 31st for items in this list and for books listed on line in the subject categories "Christmas" and "Gift Books" (and for last minute stocking stuffers see a collection of Harlequin Romances in Greek <vbg>) *Eikones Tis Athenas / Images of Athens . *Athens: National gallery/ Alexander Soutzos Museum, 1998. First Thus. Laminated HC. As New Himerologia 1999 - a large format [unused] desk diary and address book, illustrated with lovely etchings and paintings of Athens by Greek and foreign artists.- a nice gift item. Unpaginated. $40.00 *About, Edmond. The King of the Mountains (Le Roi Des Montagnes)GNES. *ill. George Avison.. New York: Cupples & Leon, 1924. Hard Cover. Near Fine / Near Fine. First published as Le Roi des Montagnes (1856) About's popular novel satirizes the famous Klephts Klephts of 19thC. Greece. His portrait of Hadj-Stavros owes something to the real life brigand of the mountains Christodoulos Hadji-Petros (whose charm was sufficient to attract Lady Jane Digby during her adventurous stay in Greece) 300p. illus This is an original vintage copy and NOT a modern reprint from a digitized copy. $45.00 *Benizelos, Ioannis [Venizelos] 1735-1807. Istoria Ton Athenon [Tomos A, Tomos B]. *Athens: Ekdotike Athinon, 1986. First Thus. Leather Style Binding.2 volume Boxed Set. Fine / No Jacket (as issued). Istoria Ton Athenon. Me prolegomena Ioannou Gennadiou. Epimeleia Ekdoses I.Kokkona - G Mpokou . Epistemoniki Epopteia kai Parousiase M.I.Manousaka. . This edition produced by The Alexander S.Onassis Public Benefit Foundation in a handsome decorative blue leather binding protected in a blue cloth box. Volume 1 (Pages 1- 240) Vol 2 (Pages 242-500) illus. index. A nice set for a gift ! $50.00 *Dimacopoulos, Jordan [Iordanes Demakopoulos]. Ho George Whitmore sten Kerkyra : to Anaktoro ton Hagion Michael kai Georgiou kai to Mnemeio Maitland / George Whitmore on Corfu : the Palace of St. Michael and St. George and the Maitland Monument. *Athens: Greek Ministry of Culture, 1994. First Edition. Hardcover. As New / As New. ISBN: 9607254082. Parallel Greek and English texts describing two of the lovely Neo-Classical buildings in Corfu - the the Palace of St. Michael and St. George anthe Monument to Sir Thomas Maitland - designed by George Whitmore and built during the British protectorate of the Ionian islands c182l. 04 p. : ill. (some col.) $95.00 *Draper, Charlotte Whitney. The American Farm School of Thessaloniki: A family album = He Amerikanike Georgike Schole Thessalonikes : mia historia se Photographies. *Thessaloniki: American Farm School, 1994. First Edition. Original Wraps. Signed by Author. Very Good ISBN: 0964041103. The The American Farm School was established By John Henry House in 1902 . This book vividly illustrates with contemporary photographs its development and successes despiite the disruptions of two World Wars and a Civil War. Parallel text in English and Greek. 153p. illus . Signed by author on title page $40.00 *Kountoura-Galake, Eleonora. Hoi skoteinoi aiones tou Vyzantiou (7os-9os ai.) / The dark centuries of Byzantium (7th-9th c.). *Athens: Ethniko Hidryma Ereunon,, 2001. First Edition. New ISBN: 9603710156 . Text in Greek, English, French and German. . Author: Eleonora Kountoura-Galake Publisher: Athena : Ethniko Hidryma Ereunon, 2001. Series: Diethne Symposia, 9 Notes: Description: 462 p. : ill. ; 24 cm. Series Title: Diethne Symposia, 9 Other Titles: Dark centuries of Byzantium (7th-9th c.) $75.00 *Lampakes, Stelios. He Byzantine Mikra Asia ( 6os-12os ai) Byzantine Asia Minor (6th-12th cent.).. *Athens: Ethniko Hidryma Ereunon/ Instituto Vyzantinon Ereunon,, 1998. First Edition. New ISBN: 9603710059. Collection of papers (In English, Greek Frech and German) on various aspects of life in Asia Minor during the 6th-12th centuries. 446p. $100.00 *Paliouras,Athanasios D. To Oikoumeniko Patriarcheio: He megale tou Christou Ekklesia. *ill. Photographs : Garo Nalbandian. Geneva: Orthodoxo Kentro tou Oikoumenikou Patriarcheiou,, 1989. First Edition. Hard Cover. Boxed. Fine / Fine. ISBN: 9604290096. Gorgeous large format illustrated book about the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Constantinople. 266 p. illus [This heavy volume weighs 3kg / 6lb 10oz.] Book in fine condition protected by cardboard sleeve which has some wear. A nice Gift Book ! $200.00 *Papoutsy, Christos. A Celebration of Greek Music . *Enfield NH: The Greek and Near Eastern Publishing Company, 2009. 1st UK Edition. Soft Cover. New Book from Publisher ISBN: 9781442153813. " .. a comprehensive resource about Greek music and traditional folk dances , from ancient songs to modern folk music and how to apply the theory of Eastern modes... there are 94 scores... and 100's of Greek Lyrics to inspire you to play and dance .. with traditional, contemporary and specially composed works. Illustrations include the most well-known instruments that have accompanied Greek orchestras through the ages." $40.00 *Skrobucha, Heinz. Icons in Czechoslovakia. *ill. Photographs Ladislav Neubert. London: Paul Hamlyn, 1971. 1st UK Ed.. Hard Cover. Very Good / No Jacket. ISBN: 0600020053. "This volume with its 60 superb colour plates draws attention to the magnificent icons to be found in Czechoslovakia, but which today are half-forgotten by the general public. The work is divided into two groups: the first is a selection of typical icons from the 15th to the 17th centuries in National Gallery of Prague. The second group consists of over forty icons belonging to various museum collections and villages in the Carpathian region in Eastern Slovakia." $22.50 * Stamatopoulos. Kostas & Mellas, Akylas. Konstantinoupoli : Anazetontas Ti Vasileuousa (IN GREEK). *ill. Photographs By Liza Evert, Dora Menaidi & Maria Phakiki. Athens: Ekdoseis Lousi Batzioti, 1990. 1st Greek Ed.. Hard Cover. Near Fine / Fine. ISBN: 960-7294-03-3. Large format illustrated book about Constantinople, showing the architecture and life of the late 19th.century. 178p., illus (col) bibliography. Fine except for a small tear on last end paper. Tucked inside is a folded copy of an old Greek map of the city. Jacket has paper band announcing "Vraveio Akademias Athenon 1991" $200.00 *Tomkinson, John L. Festive Greece : a Calendar of Traditions. *Athens: Anagnosis Books, 2003. 1st Greek Ed.. Soft Cover. New Book from Greece ISBN: 960-87186-8-6 . (NEW : Book will be sent direct from the publisher in Greece) A Calendar of Greek festivals and other observances throughout the year, 'Festive Greece' is the only comprehensive and detailed guide in print in English to the wealth of tradition accessible to the traveller in Greece.Included in Festive Greece are in-depth studies of many of the more exotic manifestations of popular culture: such as the mysterious figures dressed in animal skins and sheep bells which roam the streets of many of the towns and villages of Northern Greece during the winter and spring carnival seasons; the many variations on the religious and popular ceremonies of Holy Week and Easter; the fire-walking Anastenarides, probably remnants of the ancient groups dedicated to the cult of Dionysos; the bull-sacrifices of Lesbos; the annual appearance in church of the Virgin's serpents in Kefalonia; and the annual services in honour of the Cross, held in commemoration of a vision received during the German occupation, in Metsovo.From proud military parades commemorating the trials and victories of the modern state, to children's spring carol festivities which have survived almost unchanged from ancient times, this beautifully illustrated guide will provide you with a key to a more eventful stay in the country and a better appreciation of its long and colourful past." 144P. Illus( col.) $40.00 *Yiannacopoulos, Gregorios A. Smyrne - Opseis Ellenikotetas Kai Politismou / Smyrna - Aspects of Greekness and Culture . *ill. Trans. Judy Yiannakopoulou . Alimos: Ekdeseis Ephesos , 2001. First Thus. Laminated HC. As New Himerologia 2002 - a large format [unused] desk diary and address book, illustrated with lovely vintage postcards and photographs of Smyrna - a nice nostalgic gift item. Unpaginated. $55.00 ** *Zora, Popi. Embroideries and Jewellery of Greek national Costumes . *ill. Translation: Christopher N.W. Klint, Helen Zigada. Athens: Museum of Greek Folk Art /Mouseio Hellenikes Laikes Technes , 1981. 2nd Ed. Soft Cover. Fine Beautifully illustrated book on Greek folk art embroidery and jewellery . 38p text + 58p f plates (some col) bibliography. $60.00 -- June Samaras KALAMOS BOOKS (For Books about Greece) 2020 Old Station Rd Streetsville,Ontario Canada L5M 2V1 Tel : 905-542-1877 E-mail : kalamosbooks(a)gmail.com www.kalamosbooks.com http://kalamosb.alibrisstore.com/ http://www.antiqbook.com/books/bookseller.phtml/kal

13 years, 5 months

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CoHSL-list December 2010