Last Virgin Megastore in New York City Closes

I really need to start blogging more regularly!  For those of you still left reading (or even subscribed to) my blog, I apologize!

So, the title of this blog must have some wondering what it means.  I read in the NYT today that the last major music store in New York City has closed.  See:  http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/15/arts/music/15virgin.html.  Well, I read the article and couldn’t help but wonder if there are not implications here for the library

For example,  see the quotes from Tony Beliech:  “Unfortunately the large retail music store is a dinosaur” and also  “It does matter because it was also a social gathering space, and that’s one thing that buying music online lacks.” Yet, the store is closing.

Then there is this quote from Michael McGuire:  “The Titanic that is physical media started slowly sinking in 2000.  Certainly this is a traumatic event for those who worked there, but it’s an expected product of the digital transition.”

Then there is this too:  “true value was not in its sales but in the real estate that its stores occupied”

Obviously there are vast differences between academic libraries and record stores.  However, is there something here we can take away?  What are the implications here for academic libraries?

Grants awarded

Well, it’s been awhile since I contributed to my blog.  What can I say?  It’s been a busy time!

I’m pleased to announce that we have received two important grants that are both related to our collection of World War I trench maps. The first is a grant from the Canadian heritage ministry to acquire an additional 900+ trench maps to add to our collection.  See the Hamilton Spectator article for more details on this acquisition.

The second is an award from the Canada Foundation for Innovation to create a facilty to study scaling within the gaming environment.  The trench maps will be used to create an three-dimensional environment within a gaming framework for the purpose of studying scale and the user experience.

We’re very excited about both of these initiatives!

McMaster librarians quoted in University Affairs

Congratulations to Krista and Shawn who were quoted in the recent issue of University Affairs on the use of Second Life:

http://www.affairesuniversitaires.ca/2008/12/01/studies-in-second-life.aspx

Apple Computers Coming Soon!

This September, McMaster Libraries will be introducing Apple computers in the public areas in both Thode and Mills Libraries. Come September, you’ll find a sea of brand new machines, including iMacs, Mac Pros and Apple laptops.

Don’t worry if you’re not familiar with the Apple operating system. All of these stations will be dual boot, which means you’ll be able to start them up and run either the Apple or Windows operating system.

The integration of Apple computers at the libraries allows for greater flexibility and a wider range of software choices. In addition, it gives library users a choice about which operating system they would prefer to use.

Thode Library will have the following mix of machines available on the newly renovated first floor:

12 Mac Pros with 30″ screens for multimedia functions

38 iMacs

30 laptops

Mills Library will be outfitted with a number of brand new iMacs, including:

66 iMacs in the Mills Learning Commons on the second floor of the library

30 MacBooks in the Wong e-classroom on the first floor of Mills

The machines will be equipped with office software (i.e. word processing, spreadsheet) in addition to specialized software such as Matlab.

Library Learning Technologies staff, who oversee all technology in the libraries, are hurriedly preparing the new machines and testing the dual boot functionality. They are also providing training to the IT Help staff, who work at service desks in Mills Learning Commons and the first floor of Thode, to make sure we are able to answer any questions you might have when using the new machines.

An added bonus of this endeavour is that it frees up more Windows-based laptop computers to circulate through the library’s laptop lending program. That means there will be more laptops for you to borrow.

Please contact John Fink, digital technologies development librarian, at jfink@mcmaster.ca with any questions.

First digital initiatives site launched

We are extremely happy to announce the “soft launch” of our first digitization initiative.  Peace and War in the 20th Century is a collaboration between McMaster, Hamilton Public Library and the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum.  The URL for the project is:  http://pw20c.mcmaster.ca/  It’s still under development so any comments would be welcomed!

We’ve chosen drupal for our platform.  Anonymous users can access all of the collections.  Registered users (anybody can register) can access all of the collections, comment on records, vote comments up or down (kinda like digg), use the Curate It! feature (digg like feature), and utilize the account based bookmarking (Bookbag) to save records for later viewing.  It also includes a faceted search feature like Endeca.  The site is also OAI-PMH compliant and has been harvested by U of Michigan and UIUC.

This is our first major digitization effort.  More to come!

McMaster partners with Portico

From the Portico press release

Portico, a not-for-profit digital preservation service, introduced three expansions of its preservation work at its third annual Participants’ Meeting, held during the American Library Association Annual Conference in Anaheim, California. In direct response to preservation concerns expressed by libraries and publishers, Portico is moving beyond e-journal preservation.

• Portico now preserves scholarly e-books.
At ALA, Elsevier, a leading scientific journal, database, and book publisher, announced an agreement to preserve in the Portico archive e-book content available in ScienceDirect. (seehttp://elsevier.com/wps/find/authored_newsitem.careers/companynews05_00960). Portico is in active discussions with several other e-book publishers and will announce additional agreements as these are finalized.

• Portico has also initiated preservation activities for digitized newspapers. Discussions with a number of leading publishers of current and historical digitized newspapers are underway, and we will keep the community apprised as these move ahead.

• Portico also announced a new service to enable libraries to preserve locally created/digitized electronic scholarly materials within the Portico archive. Fifteen institutions have agreed to work with Portico in the introductory phase of this service. These institutions include:

° American University
° Baylor University
° Binghamton University
° Brigham Young University
° California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
° City University of New York
° Colorado State University
° McMaster University
° Middlebury College
° Northwestern University
° Trinity College, Dublin
° University of British Columbia
° University of Notre Dame
° University of Queensland
° Vassar College

Portico expects to open this service to interested libraries in mid-2009.

For more than a decade the scholarly community has expressed concerns about preservation, in particular for e-journals, and Portico’s digital preservation service was launched in late 2005 in direct response to this need. As new preservation needs are brought to Portico’s attention by both libraries and publishers, Portico is working to respond to these needs in ways that allow us to more fully meet our mission to preserve scholarly literature published in electronic form and to ensure that these materials remain accessible to future generations of scholars, researchers, and students. Portico’s new activities will proceed as preservation of the more than 7,700 journals committed to the Portico archive continues.

To obtain additional information about participation in Portico or about these preservation activities see www.portico.org or send an email to participation@portico.org.

Regards,

Ken

Kenneth DiFiore, MLS 
Associate Director of Library Relations, Portico
tel: 609 986-2276
fax: 609 951-0020
email: ken.difiore@portico.org
web: www.portico.org

McMaster: Charter member in newspaper digitization program

(Press release from Readex)

Readex partners with Center for Research Libraries
to create Web-based World Newspaper Archive

Digitization effort will feature thousands of historical newspaper titles published outside the United States

JUNE 26, 2008 (NAPLES, FL) — , a division of NewsBank, and the  (CRL) announced today that they will create the world’s largest, fully searchable digital archive of international newspapers. The World Newspaper Archive will provide students, teachers and scholars unprecedented access to historical newspapers published outside the United States, advancing research and offering new insights across wide-ranging academic disciplines.

“NewsBank offers the greatest combination of expertise and capabilities to provide our members sustainable access to historical news content,” says Bernard F. Reilly, president of the Center for Research Libraries. “By partnering with its Readex division in this cooperative effort, we plan to systematically digitize and deliver over the Web the foreign newspapers held by CRL and other major newspaper repositories.“

This uniquely comprehensive electronic resource will first offer Latin American newspapers published between 1805 and 1922 in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, Venezuela and other countries. Further series will focus on historical newspapers published in Africa, South Asia and other areas. Users will be able to seamlessly cross-search the World Newspaper Archive with , including Early American Newspapers and Hispanic American Newspapers.

“Readex and the Center for Research Libraries share a commitment to provide sustainable online access to primary source research collections,” says David Braden, Readex president. “We are delighted to be working in cooperation with CRL—one of the world’s largest and most important newspaper repositories—to launch this landmark digital project and expand opportunities to discover these primary resources.”

The initial Latin American series will offer approximately 35 titles, encompassing nearly one million pages. Among the newspapers expected to be included are La Prensa (Buenos Aires), O Estado de São Paulo (São Paulo), Mercurio (Santiago), La Prensa (Havana), Diario de Centro America (Guatemala City), Daily Chronicle (Georgetown, Guyana), Mexican Herald (Mexico City), El Peruano (Lima), Port of Spain Gazette (Port of Spain), and theVenezuelan Herald (Caracas).

“International newspapers have long been highly valued by students and researchers in the humanities and social sciences,” says Glenda Pearson, Human Rights Librarian and Head of Newspaper Collections at the University of Washington. “This exciting joint project between CRL and Readex will advance scholarly inquiry, while ensuring worldwide access to these invaluable publications for generations to come.”

Participating members of CRL will enjoy permanent access to the World Newspaper Archive, while all others around the world will be offered access by Readex. Charter CRL participants now include Harvard University; McMaster University; New York Public Library; Princeton University; University of California, Berkeley; University of California, Los Angeles; University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign; University of Texas; University of Washington; and Yale University.

About the The Center for Research Libraries is an international partnership of over 240 universities, colleges and independent research libraries. CRL supports advanced research and learning in the humanities, sciences and social sciences by ensuring the survival and accessibility of source materials vital to those disciplines.

About , a division of For more than 50 years, the Readex name has been synonymous with research in historical materials and government documents. Recognized by librarians, students and scholars for its efforts to transform academic scholarship, Readex offers a wealth of Web-based collections in the humanities and social sciences, including the Archive of Americana and the Foreign Broadcast Information Service Daily Reports.

For more information or to speak with a Readex expert, contact Readex Marketing Manager David Loiterstein by calling 203.421.0152 or emailing dloiterstein@readex.com.

Centre for Leadership in Learning and LTRC move to new space in the libraries

Our Centre for Leadership in Learning (faculty development) and Learning Technologies Resource Centre (LMS/learning technologies) will be moving to newly renovated space in our Thode Library (Science and Engineering).

This move is significant and will provide our campus with a “one stop shop” for faculty development. There is tremendous potential in this new relationship!

http://dailynews.mcmaster.ca/story.cfm?id=5473

Pictures: McMaster/Lulu/Kirtas partnership celebration

Pictures from our celebration of our partnership with Lulu/Kirtas can be found at:  http://flickr.com/photos/macetg/

Included are pics of Bob Young (Lulu) and Lotfi Belkhir (Kirtas)

Enjoy!

McMaster University Library/Kirtas/Lulu Partnership

Imagine owning a copy of Galileo’s 1632 book, Dialogo di Galileo Galilei (Galileo’s Dialogue), challenging the traditional thinking that the universe revolves around the earth. At the time, the book and its concepts were so controversial, that Galileo was convicted of heresy in 1633 and the book was placed on the Index of Forbidden Books.

Or perhaps a first-edition, autographed copy of H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine is a more suitable choice for your own personal library?

These books and more will be made available to the public, beginning this fall, through a unique partnership between McMaster University Library and U.S.-based companies Kirtas Technologies, Inc. and Lulu.com.

With the support of Kirtas’ Canadian reseller Ristech, McMaster University will be using the Kirtas APT BookScan 2400RA to digitize rare, out-of-print books. Once the books are digitized and processed, McMaster faculty, students and staff will have free access to digital copies of the entire collection of scanned materials. The world will be able to access McMaster’s unique collections online, and even purchase as print-on-demand books from Lulu.com.

“We have significant collections that we would like to make more widely accessible through digitization,” said Jeffrey Trzeciak, University Librarian at McMaster University. “The digitization technology provided by Kirtas, the support and service we receive from Ristech, and the ability of Lulu to pull it all together increases both the electronic availability and the availability of the books in print for those who choose print on demand.”

As the publisher of these unique books, the Library also hopes to generate revenue through the print-on-demand service.

“We see more and more universities taking advantage of the print-on-demand option that is enabled through the digitization process,” said Kirtas Founder and CEO Lotfi Belkhir. “Not only are these institutions sharing their unique collections, but they are also creating a revenue stream that allows them to reinvest in their access and preservation efforts.”

“This is a tremendous opportunity for our customers to obtain books that may not be easy to find,” said Lulu.com CEO and Founder Bob Young. “In addition to being a place to publish, Lulu is a vast marketplace where anyone can buy books on just about any subject.” A native of Hamilton, Ontario, the affiliation puts Young in familiar territory.

McMaster University Library will be hosting a launch event celebrating their entry into mass digitization and publishing on Monday, May 26th at 9:30 a.m. The event will take place in the Mills Learning Commons at Mills Memorial Library and will include a demonstration of the machine and display some of the Library’s rare book collection.

To keep up to date on this project, please visit, http://digi.blog.lib.mcmaster.ca