techMETRO

Digitization in the Real World: Call for Participation

The Metropolitan New York Library Council (METRO) is pleased to announce a call to participate in a forthcoming book, tentatively titled Digitization in the Real World: Lessons Learned from Small to Medium-Sized Digitization Projects. This book is intended to document experiences with digitization projects that fall outside the spectrum of mass digitization initiatives that have tended to be more thoroughly discussed and documented. Digitization in the Real World will be co-edited by Professor Kwong Bor Ng (Queens College, CUNY) and Jason Kucsma (METRO).

Your experiences will provide useful case studies on what works and what does not for libraries, archives, museums and other cultural heritage organizations managing small- to medium-sized collections. Librarians, archivists, and students stand to benefit from your experiences — learning about the how the key elements of digitization projects play out in diverse institutional contexts. How was your project started? How was it implemented? What organizational and technological obstacles were encountered, and how were they overcome? Were they overcome? What new solutions did your project implement, and were those experiments successful or not? What are some of the lessons learned from your project? Is your project still growing? If not, why?

The scope of these case studies will inherently diverge, and we encourage that diversity. A book that candidly discusses your projects will be of great value to other libraries, archives, museums, cultural institutions, and graduate school students in library science and archives programs.

If you’d like to participate, please submit the following information via email on or before August 31, 2009.
Name:
Email:
Institution:
Chapter Abstract: 500-1000 words describing the scope of your project and key elements you intend to address in your chapter.

Should your proposal be accepted, you will be notified by September 21, 2009 with chapter guidelines and editorial suggestions. The final chapter would be due on December 14, 2009, upon which it will be sent for double-blind peer review. The book is scheduled to be published by METRO, and you will, of course, receive a copy of the book.

CONTACT:
Jason Kucsma
Emerging Technologies Manager, METRO
jkucsma_at_metro.org

Professor KB Ng
Associate Professor, Graduate School of Library and Information Science, Queens College, CUNY
kbng_at_qc.cuny.edu


ABOUT METRO:
The Metropolitan New York Library Council (METRO) was chartered in 1964 by the New York Board of Regents to “promote and facilitate utilization of existing resources and to develop additional library services in the New York metropolitan area.” Today, with 250 member organizations throughout New York City and Westchester County, METRO is the largest of New York State’s nine reference and research library resource systems, and one of the largest library service organizations in the world. Since 2005, METRO has provided over $300k in digitization grants to fund over 30 small to medium-sized digitization projects as part of its Digital Library Services Plan.

ABOUT THE EDITORS:
Prof. Kwong Bor Ng is an associate professor at the Graduate School of Library and Information Studies, Queens College, CUNY. His most recent publication is Using XML, published by Neal Schuman in 2007. His other book (co-edited with S. Rummler), Collaborative Technologies and Applications for Interactive Information Design: Emerging Trends in User Experiences, will be published in Sept 2009 by IGI Global.

Jason Kucsma is the Emerging Technologies Manager at the Metropolitan New York Library Council where he manages METRO’s Digitization Grant Program and is the point person for member inquiries related to the resources, training and referral services associated with digitization, digital preservation and emerging technologies issues. Jason received his M.A. in American Culture Studies from Bowling Green State University and an M.L.S. from the University of Arizona School of Information Resources and Library Science. He is currently working part-time on a certificate in Digital Information Management (University of Arizona), is part-time lecturer in Rutgers’s Library and Information Science graduate program, and is a recent graduate of ALA’s 2009 Emerging Leaders Program.

Planning for Institutional Repositories

OCLC hosted a webinar yesterday about institutional repositories and the role they plan collecting, storing, managing, disseminating, and preserving intellectual and creative assets within our institutions. Greg Zick led the first half of the webinar surveying the IR landscape and was followed by Ron Gardner discussing CONTENTdm as one out-of-the-box IR solution.

The entire webinar was recorded and archived online here.

Google Announces Settlement with Publishers

Google just announced that they have reached a settlement on a three-year-old class action suit filed by the The Authors Guild, the Association of American Publishers, and other independent authors and publishers. I haven't had a chance to read through all the details, but Google is calling it a "groundbreaking settlement." Jessamyn West (librarian, consultant, metafilter.com moderator, library hero, etc...) has compiled a short list of resources and Dan Cohen (Director, Center for History and New Media) offered up some first impressions. Expect more here on the subject in the near future.

Old Wine. New Models. Google and ProQuest.

A recent press release from ProQuest announced that they have embarked on a project with Google to digitize hundreds of millions of newspaper pages. Amazing, right? The project is one of the first of its kind and certainly the first with this sort of scope. As such, they will likely be developing models from which we can learn a lot about how to fund a project like this and manage the copyright issues. Regarding the former, ProQuest senior vice-president of publishing Rod Gauvin said:

The demand for digitized newspaper archives is clearly there.  The problem is it that, until now, finding a workable economic model for libraries and publishers has been challenging ... This model overcomes that hurdle, unlocking a wealth of content for libraries and internet users with unique research needs.

What's not mentioned in the press release, but is noted in a recent Library Journal post, is that the "workable model" of which he speaks involves Google picking up the tab on the digital conversion work -- in exchange for placing advertising next to the newspaper page images. Hundreds of millions of newspaper pages. I'm certainly all for creative funding strategies, but I'm sure more than a few librarian eyebrows will be raised by this news. LJ also reportst that ProQuest is considering a "Premium Content" strategy where users will pay extra for certain content like The New York Times. They might want to consider asking the NYTimes about their NYTimesSelect project before they start premium-atizing content.

Although the project is already underway, ProQuest and Google have been frank about not being entirely sure about how they will handle content that neither ProQuest nor Google have permission to digitize and release. It'll be interesting to see what happens when they run up against the end of the papers they have rights to and have to begin negotiating the murky water in which the Books Project is still swimming/treading.

Code4LibNYC and Digitization at METRO

It's the beginning of a pretty busy season for us here at METRO, and I'm pretty excited about some of the developments we have brewing.

Last week marked the first meeting of the Code4LibNYC chapter, convening under the umbrella of Special Interest Groups (SIGs) hosted by METRO. According to the conveners, this new group aspires to "provide a forum where library technologists can share information about library technology and discuss their current projects ... [it] is open to all library staff interested in the coding, deployment, and design of library software, systems, and web services." The group of 25+ met for a series of lightning talks and general discussion about the direction this new chapter/SIG will be taking over the course of the next series of meetings (approximately 4 per year). Notes from this first meeting are already posted on the Code4LibNYC SIG wiki.

On Tuesday, METRO will be hosting the a re-convening of the Digitization SIG at 5pm at the METRO Training Center (57 E. 11). After an extended hiatus, new conveners are "getting the band back together" to, once again, provide a venue for information and best practices sharing on all aspects of digitization in libraries. Read more about the group's history and sign up for the mailing list here.

Both of these mark what I see to be a renewed commitment at METRO to provide resources and catalysts for bringing together bright librarians who are tackling some of the big issues and opportunities our libraries are facing.

Update on Orphan Works Bill

According to a recent report from the Association of Research Libraries, the Orphan Works bill under consideration in the House and Senate may not see any movement during this Congress. From ARL:

Just prior to the August congressional recess, the US Senate tried to bring the Shawn Bentley Orphan Works Act of 2008 (S. 2913) to the floor for consideration. Several holds on the legislation derailed Senate passage at that time. Key issues remaining are inclusion of provisions concerning state sovereign immunity and concerns with bill language regarding “qualifying searches.” The library and higher education communities offered language to resolve these remaining concerns but the recommended changes were not incorporated into the House and Senate legislation. With so little time remaining when Congress returns in early September, it is not clear if there will be additional activity on orphan works legislation during this Congress.

To read more about recommended changes contributed by library and higher education here.