DataONE (Observation Network for Earth) Project at UNM Receives $20 Million Award

The DataONE office, based within both the Office of the Vice President of Research and University Libraries at the University of New Mexico, has been awarded $20 million by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to support its scientific research activities for the next five years. The project is under the direction of William Michener, professor and director of e-science initiatives at University Libraries.

Researchers at UNM have partnered with dozens of other universities and agencies to create DataONE, a global data access and preservation network for earth and environmental scientists that will support breakthroughs in environmental research.

DataONE is designed to provide universal access to data about life on Earth and the environment that sustains it. The underlying technologies will provide open, persistent, robust, and secure access to well-described and easily discovered Earth observational data.

Expected users include scientists, educators, librarians, resource managers, and the public. By providing easy and open access to a broad range of science data, as well as tools for managing, analyzing, and visualizing data, DataONE will be transformative in the speed with which researchers will be able to assemble and analyze data sets and in the types of problems they will be able to address.

Dr. Michener spoke at the Spring 2009 GWLA Membership Meeting in Houston, TX.

For further information, please go to: http://www.unm.edu/~market/cgi-bin/archives/004536.html

The University of Oklahoma's 27th Annual Conference will be held on March 4th and 5th, 2010 in Oklahoma City.
For speaker, program and registration information, please see: http://libraries.ou.edu/conferences/conf2010/
or contact Rhonda Cannon at rhondacannon@ou.edu

The GWLA program on "Reinventing Reference" is now available for viewing at http://mulibraries.missouri.edu/media/gwla.htm. We thank our excellent panel of speakers and Jim Cogswell and the team at MU Libraries who made the webcast possible.

Birmingham, Ala., – Sept. 18, 2009 –EBSCO and a number of library consortia are working together to help consortia members reduce the cost and burden of processing e-journal package renewals by using EBSCO’s  RapidRenewal® service, available via EBSCONET®. As libraries face the most dramatic budget conditions in history, they are often losing staff necessary to handle administrative tasks. EBSCO's RapidRenewal, an online tool for managing the renewal of licensed e-journal collections, is designed to ease the administrative burdens associated with renewing e-journal packages. By partnering with consortia, EBSCO is able to provide an e-package renewal tool to more customers for managing contract data at a consortial level.

Library consortia have been able to negotiate large content deals successfully with major publishers and offer membership terms and conditions that are unique to their respective consortium. RapidRenewal, developed in cooperation with many of the major STM publishers, enables libraries to process these licensed deals in a more efficient manner by incorporating consortial contract terms and limitations, title detail and custom pricing into a single online interface. “Our members are extremely busy and are always looking for ways to streamline the serials renewal process," said Ed McBride, chief of member engagement at Lyrasis. "We are happy to provide them with a tool like EBSCO’s RapidRenewal that can help them do just that.”

Executive Director of SCELC Rick Burke said: “Many of our libraries are EBSCO subscription service clients. Consequently, we chose to promote to our member libraries the option to utilize EBSCO’s RapidRenewal services. Our offer bundles discount options that reduce our members’ operating cost for processing and maintaining their e-journal packages.”

The RapidRenewal interface provides a single portal for processing the renewal of multiple packages while eliminating the cumbersome exchange of spreadsheets, e-mail and other communication. The library can modify and approve package title lists as the system enforces the terms of the consortial contract and ensures that renewals are handled correctly each year. Authority levels allow renewals to be approved at the consortial or library level, depending on the preferred process of the consortium or publisher.

As a result of using RapidRenewal, libraries within a consortium can take advantage of the negotiated terms and conditions, easily renew their collections according to their contract terms, and have the title-by-title analysis that is often needed in today’s shrinking budget environment. "Attempting to identify creative ways in reducing technical services administrative costs while also trying to reduce workloads can be a difficult task, said Anne E. McKee, MLS, program officer for resource sharing at GWLA. "EBSCO’s Rapid Renewal system is a well-designed solution that will help meet both of those needs in e-journal renewal processing.  GWLA is pleased to work with EBSCO in this effort.”

“We are looking forward to working with consortia in providing their EBSCO members with a tool that reduces the time spent processing package renewals from weeks to a few hours in many cases," said Rebecca Day, manager of e-resources development at EBSCO.  "Our libraries that are using RapidRenewal have indicated the tool allows them to have better control and more efficient renewals of e-packages. We are delighted to be able to offer a tool that has been proven to reduce the library’s workload, particularly given current staffing and budget situations in many libraries.”

About EBSCO:

EBSCO is the world’s premier full-service provider of information, offering a portfolio of services that spans the realm of print and electronic subscription access and management, research databases and more. The company’s e-resource renewal and management tools help librarians accomplish in hours what once took weeks. For more information, please visit www.ebsco.com.

EBSCO Partners with Key Consortia to Simplify Renewal of E-Journal Packages

 

Birmingham, Ala., – Sept. 18, 2009 –EBSCO and a number of library consortia are working together to help consortia members reduce the cost and burden of processing e-journal package renewals by using EBSCO’s  RapidRenewal® service, available via EBSCONET®. As libraries face the most dramatic budget conditions in history, they are often losing staff necessary to handle administrative tasks. EBSCO's RapidRenewal, an online tool for managing the renewal of licensed e-journal collections, is designed to ease the administrative burdens associated with renewing e-journal packages. By partnering with consortia, EBSCO is able to provide an e-package renewal tool to more customers for managing contract data at a consortial level.

 

Library consortia have been able to negotiate large content deals successfully with major publishers and offer membership terms and conditions that are unique to their respective consortium. RapidRenewal, developed in cooperation with many of the major STM publishers, enables libraries to process these licensed deals in a more efficient manner by incorporating consortial contract terms and limitations, title detail and custom pricing into a single online interface. “Our members are extremely busy and are always looking for ways to streamline the serials renewal process," said Ed McBride, chief of member engagement at Lyrasis. "We are happy to provide them with a tool like EBSCO’s RapidRenewal that can help them do just that.”

 

Executive Director of SCELC Rick Burke said: “Many of our libraries are EBSCO subscription service clients. Consequently, we chose to promote to our member libraries the option to utilize EBSCO’s RapidRenewal services. Our offer bundles discount options that reduce our members’ operating cost for processing and maintaining their e-journal packages.”

 

The RapidRenewal interface provides a single portal for processing the renewal of multiple packages while eliminating the cumbersome exchange of spreadsheets, e-mail and other communication. The library can modify and approve package title lists as the system enforces the terms of the consortial contract and ensures that renewals are handled correctly each year. Authority levels allow renewals to be approved at the consortial or library level, depending on the preferred process of the consortium or publisher.

 

As a result of using RapidRenewal, libraries within a consortium can take advantage of the negotiated terms and conditions, easily renew their collections according to their contract terms, and have the title-by-title analysis that is often needed in today’s shrinking budget environment. "Attempting to identify creative ways in reducing technical services administrative costs while also trying to reduce workloads can be a difficult task, said Anne E. McKee, MLS, program officer for resource sharing at GWLA. "EBSCO’s Rapid Renewal system is a well-designed solution that will help meet both of those needs in e-journal renewal processing.  GWLA is pleased to work with EBSCO in this effort.”

 

“We are looking forward to working with consortia in providing their EBSCO members with a tool that reduces the time spent processing package renewals from weeks to a few hours in many cases," said Rebecca Day, manager of e-resources development at EBSCO.  "Our libraries that are using RapidRenewal have indicated the tool allows them to have better control and more efficient renewals of e-packages. We are delighted to be able to offer a tool that has been proven to reduce the library’s workload, particularly given current staffing and budget situations in many libraries.”

 

About GWLA:

The Greater Western Library Alliance (GWLA) is a consortium of 32 research libraries located across 17 Midwestern & Western states with common interests in programs related to scholarly communication, interlibrary loan, shared electronic resources, cooperative collection development, digital libraries, staff development and continuing education.

 

About SCELC:

The Statewide California Electronic Library Consortium (SCELC) was established in 1986 to develop resource-sharing relationships among the 95 libraries of private academic institutions in California.

 

About Lyrasis:

Lyrasis is created from the merger of PALINET and SOLINET, two of the strongest and most successful library networks. Lyrasis provides a regional base and national scope to expand the collaboration and services you value, while adding important new initiatives to shape our future together. Lyrasis members now include over 4,000 member libraries and cultural heritage institutions across the U.S. and beyond.

 

About EBSCO:

EBSCO is the world’s premier full-service provider of information, offering a portfolio of services that spans the realm of print and electronic subscription access and management, research databases and more. The company’s e-resource renewal and management tools help librarians accomplish in hours what once took weeks. For more information, please visit www.ebsco.com.

From Elsevier's Engineering Village Newsletter:  "Maliaca Oxnam has been a science-engineering librarian at the University of Arizona Libraries (UAL) since 2000.  Her time there has included involvement in several strategic projects for UAL, including leading the Strategic Long Range Planning Team for the Libraries, the development of the Geotechnical Rock & Water Resources Digital Library (GROW), and more. Ei recently talked with Maliaca about her work on the Technical Report Archive & Image Library project (TRAIL). Focused on further helping researchers get their hands on hard to find historical government research reports, the TRAIL project involves collaboration between UAL and more than 50 other academic, government, and commercial institutions." 

Link to Podcast of Interview

Link to Interview Summary (Opens Word Document)

Ten library and research organizations banded together in support of Senate Bill 1373, the "Federal Research Public Access Act of 2009" The organizations believe this bill will provide an
important mechanism to ensure that manuscripts of peer-reviewed scientific articles resulting from research funded by the U.S. government can be freely accessed and used by American
taxpayers – including researchers, teachers, and students.

On June 25th,  Senators Lieberman (I-CT) and Cornyn (R-TX) introduced the Federal Research Public Access Act (S.1373), a bill that would ensure free, timely, online access to the published results of research funded by eleven U.S. federal agencies. S.1373 would require those agencies with annual extramural research budgets of $100 million or more to provide the public with online access to research manuscripts stemming from such funding no later than six months after publication in a peer-reviewed journal.  The bill gives individual agencies flexibility in choosing the location of the digital repository to house this content, as long as the repositories meet conditions for interoperability and public accessibility, and have provisions for long-term archiving.

The bill specifically covers unclassified research funded by agencies including: Department of Agriculture, Department of Commerce, Department of Defense, Department of Education, Department of Energy, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Transportation, Environmental Protection Agency, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the National Science Foundation.

S. 1373 reflects the growing trend among funding agencies – and college and university campuses – to leverage their investment in the conduct of research by maximizing the dissemination of results.  It follows the successful path forged by the NIH’s Public Access Policy, as well as by private funders like the Wellcome Trust, and universities such as Harvard and MIT.

Detailed information about the Federal Research Public Access Act is available at http://www.taxpayeraccess.org/frpaa.

All supporters of public access – universities and colleges, researchers, libraries, campus administrators, patient advocates, publishers, consumers, individuals, and others – are asked to ACT NOW to support this bill. Here’s how:

•       Contact Congress now to express your organization’s support for public access to taxpayer-funded research and for this bill. Act now through the ATA Legislative Action Center at http://www.taxpayeraccess.org/frpaa.

•       Contact Congress now to express your individual support for public access to taxpayer-funded research and for this bill (http://www.taxpayeraccess.org/frpaa).

•       Send thanks to the Bill’s sponsors – Senators Lieberman and Cornyn – also through the ATA Action Center at http://www.taxpayeraccess.org/frpaa.

•       Issue a public statement of support from your organization and share it widely with members, colleagues, and the media. Send a copy to sparc [at] arl [dot] org to be featured on the FRPAA Web site.

•       Share news about this bill with friends and colleagues.

•       Post the “I support taxpayer access” banner on your Web site.

See the ATA Web site at http://www.taxpayeraccess.org/frpaa for more ways you can support public access to publicly funded research and this bill.

As always, thank you for your support and continued persistence in supporting public access to publicly funded research in the United States. Constituent voices make an unparalleled difference on Capitol Hill.

Contact for more information:

Heather Joseph
Spokesperson for the Alliance and Executive Director of SPARC
Telephone: (202) 296-2296
Email: heather [at] arl [dot] org

First issued May 11, 2009, updated periodically with additional endorsements

The “OCLC Policy for Use and Transfer of WorldCat Records” has been widely commented on since its release on November 4, 2008.  Both the content of the policy and the process by which it was formulated have been challenged.  As a result OCLC has delayed implementation and initiated a Review Board to “Recommend principles of shared data creation and changes in the proposed Policy for Use and Transfer of WorldCat Records that will preserve the community around WorldCat infrastructure and services, and strengthen libraries…The Review Board of Shared Data Creation and Stewardship will present its findings and recommendations to the President of Members Council, the Chair of the Board of Trustees and to the OCLC President and CEO.” (see http://www.oclc.org/worldcat/catalog/policy/board/default.htm)

The member consortia endorsing this ICOLC statement add our recommendation to others in the library community calling for OCLC to withdraw the proposed policy and start anew to formulate a record use policy.  Most notably we add our support to the January 30, 2009 Final Report to the ARL Board by the Ad Hoc Task Force to Review the Proposed OCLC Policy for Use and Transfer of WorldCat Records  ( http://www.arl.org/news/pr/oclc-policy-20feb09.shtml ).  It includes an extended review of the policy and six recommendations.  We concur with the ARL report that OCLC develop a new policy based on widespread member library participation with a clear set of goals and explanations as to how the policy will achieve these goals and how member libraries will be affected operationally and legally.

We urge the OCLC Review Board to consider the issues raised in the ARL report and by others in the community.  The concerns are substantial and broad and individual ICOLC member consortia will find different concerns most compelling.  Underpinning these concerns are several broad issues that we ask the Review Board to consider.

1.  The proposed policy appears to freeze OCLC’s role in the library community based on historical and current relationships.  We share the concern, voiced by many, that the policy hinders rather than encourages innovation, and we urge the Review Board to carefully examine this issue.  It is unclear that the policy has been constructed with a focus on an evolving role of OCLC in enhancing the missions of an international library community with diverse and complex interests.

2.  The scope of the proposed policy goes well beyond any concerns about inappropriate commercial exploitation of WorldCat records.  It applies as well to non-commercial uses.  ICOLC member consortia are member-created, member-driven innovation agents.  Our initiatives are generally non-commercial and undertaken with member approval based on member needs.  Any OCLC record use policy should account for the rich and diverse innovation that takes place through many consortia.

3. The proposed policy is legally murky. There is no mechanism for negotiation of terms and conditions nor is it clear what constitutes acceptance by member libraries. A new policy must address these problems. 

The ICOLC community is mindful of the complex set of relationships and operations that are necessary for libraries to be successful in today’s content rich and technology driven world.  There is no single way all the resources necessary for success will be utilized by each library or library consortium.  OCLC is one vital component among many that libraries will use.

The ICOLC community encourages OCLC to build on its values as an international membership organization dedicated to helping libraries and consortia provide increased access and control costs.  To that end we ask the Review Board to recommend that OCLC reconsider the proposed record use policy and undertake an open, transparent process to determine how best to support libraries around the world.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION ABOUT THIS STATEMENT, PLEASE CONTACT:

Randy Dykhuis, Michigan Library Consortium, Phone: 800-530-9019 x119, Fax: 517-492-3879, E-mail: dykhuisr@mlcnet.org

Michele Newberry, Florida Center for Library Automation, Assistant Director for Library Services, Phone: 352-392-9020, Fax: 352-392-9185, Email: fclmin@ufl.edu

John Helmer, Orbis Cascade Alliance, Executive Director, Phone: 541.346.1835, Fax: 541.346.1968, Email: jhelmer@uoregon.edu

Adopters of This Statement

This statement is adopted in principle by member representatives of consortia of the "International Coalition of Library Consortia" (ICOLC) that are listed below.

As of May 11, 2009 (this statement with updates to this list will be posted periodically to http://www.library.yale.edu/consortia ) 

 

About the International Coalition of Library Consortia (ICOLC)

The International Coalition of Library Consortia (ICOLC) has been in existence since 1996.  The Coalition is an international, informal group currently comprising approximately 200 library consortia in North and South America, Europe, Australia, Asia, and Africa.  The member consortia serve all types and sizes of libraries.  ICOLC facilitates discussion among consortia on issues of common interest, and conducts one meeting per year in North America and one meeting per year in Europe.  The organization is dedicated to keeping its members informed about electronic information resources, pricing practices of electronic publishers and vendors, and other issues of importance to consortium directors and governing boards.  The Coalition also meets with the information provider community to discuss product offerings and issues of mutual concern.

More information about ICOLC can be found at http://www.library.yale.edu/consortia or contact Tom Sanville, Executive Director, OhioLINK, Suite 300, 2455 North Star Road, Columbus, OH 43221, Phone: 614-728-3600, ext. 322; tom@ohiolink.edu