Current Digital Information Landscape

Morgan, Eric Lease. "Today's Digital Information Landscape" Musings on Information and Librarianship (01 December 2007)(http://infomotions.com/musings/digital-landscape/). - Eric Lease Morgan of the University Libraries of Notre Dame wrote a lecture for the University of North Texas on the landscape of today's library in a digital word. He puts into words something that I've recently addressed in a workshop for cataloging electronic resources: "Libraries are still about the processes of collection, preservation, organization, dissemination, and sometimes evaluation of data and information. While the mediums, environments, and tools have dramatically changed, the problems and services the profession addresses remain the same." In this lecture, Morgan brings together XML, indexing, social software, and open source catalogs and repositories. A great introduction to the issues that technical services departments are facing right now. I wish I could have attended this lecture and listened to the question and answer period!
--Reprinted by permission from Current Cites 18(12) (December 2007)

E-only Tipping Point for Journals

Johnson, Richard K., and Judy Luther. The E-only Tipping Point for Journals: What's Ahead in the Print-to-Electronic Transition Zone Washington, DC: Association of Research Libraries, 2007.(http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/Electronic_Transition.pdf). - Based on interviews with librarians at research libraries and representatives of various publishing industry sectors (excluding commercial publishers), a literature review, and their own extensive experience, the well-known authors of this report predict that the end is near for the print journal: "The role of the printed journal in the institutional marketplace faces a steep decline in the coming 5 to 10 years. Print journals will exist mainly to address specialized needs, users, or business opportunities. Financial imperatives will draw libraries first--and ultimately publishers also--toward a tipping point where it no longer makes sense to subscribe to or publish printed versions of most journals."
--Reprinted by permission from Current Cites 18(12) (December 2007)

Survey of Library Blogosphere

Farkas, Meredith. "The Bloggers Among Us: A survey of the library blogosphere shows the mainstreaming of the medium" Library Journal (15 December 2007)(http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6510669.html). - Farkas, a long-time and well-respected library blogger, surveyed library bloggers (also called by some the "biblioblogosphere") to get a better sense of who is blogging and why. Having performed a previous survey, she compares numbers to detect trends. To no one's surprise, Farkas found many more bloggers than before, and women have begun to close the blogging gap with their male counterparts. The number of public librarians blogging have also increased in comparison to academic librarians. Many more statistics as well as insights gleaned from the data can be found in this article that tells us a lot about who we are as a blogging community.
--Reprinted by permission from Current Cites 18(12) (December 2007)

New Online Journal on Library Technology

The Code4Lib Journal (1)(17 December 2007) - This is the inaugural issue of the Code4Lib Journal, and if the beginning is any indication it will definitely be worth following for anyone interested in the topics we try to cover in Current Cites. Largely written by the library coders who are building new kinds of systems and infrastructure for libraries, you can't get any closer to the technology action without getting hit with shards of subroutines. The articles in this first include "Beyond OPAC 2.0: Library Catalog as Versatile Discovery Platform," "Facet-Based Search and Navigation With LCSH: Problems and Opportunities," "The Rutgers Workflow Management System: Migrating a Digital Object Management Utility to Open Source,"Communicat: The Next Generation Catalog That Almost Was"," "Connecting the Real to the Representational: Historical Demographic Data in the Town of Pullman, 1880-1940,". Add an editorial introduction, a book review, and a column, and there is much here to edify and entertain not just the geekiest among us, but civilians too. May it live long and prosper.
--Reprinted by permission from Current Cites 18(12) (December 2007)

RDA Developments

"The Joint Steering Committee for Development of RDA (JSC) is pleased to announce that a draft of RDA Sections 2-4 and 9 has been made available for comment. Please see the following Web page for the draft and details on making comments:"

http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/jsc/rdadraftsec2349.html

"Following the October 2007 JSC meeting, the Prospectus for RDA has been fully revised to reflect the new organization of RDA."

http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/jsc/rda.html#prospectus

(AUTOCAT e-list)

OCLC to Conduct New Cataloging and Metadata Pilot

"OCLC is conducting a pilot project to explore the viability and efficiency of capturing metadata from publishers and vendors upstream and enhancing that metadata in WorldCat, an approach that could provide added value to libraries and publishers by enhancing and delivering data that can work in multiple contexts and systems. The pilot will begin in January 2008."

http://www.oclc.org/news/releases/200688.htm

(AUTOCAT e-list)

AALL Comments on Draft Report on the Future of Bibliographic Control

AALL's official response to the draft report of the Library of Congress Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control is now available at:

http://www.aallnet.org/aallwash/lt12152007.pdf

OCLC's response (written by Karen Calhoun) to the draft report is available at:

http://staff.oclc.org/~levan/LC%20WG%20Report%20Comments%20OCLC%2020071214.pdf

(Posted to TS-SIS e-list)

OCLC Publishes 40th Annual Report to the Membership

"Jay Jordan, OCLC President and Chief Executive Officer ... noted that the outstanding accomplishment for the cooperative was the launch of the WorldCat.org Web site, which makes collections of OCLC member libraries visible on the Internet to people everywhere. ... In addition, Jordan said that the cooperative's long-term strategy is to provide local, group and global nodes that work together symbiotically to pursue the mission of furthering access to the world's information and reducing the rate of rise of library costs." (OCLC Abstracts)

http://www.oclc.org/news/publications/annualreports/2007.pdf

Draft Report Available from Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control

"The Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control has released its draft report on the future of bibliographic description in light of advances in search engine technology, the popularity of the Internet and the influx of electronic information resources. ... The report is available for public comment through Dec. 15. The final report will be released by Jan. 9, 2008, in time for the midwinter meeting of the American Library Association."

See http://www.loc.gov/bibliographic-future/news/draft-report.html

(Library of Congress press release posted to multiple e-lists)

OCLC WorldCat Identities

OCLC's WorldCat Identities has gone into production as part of Worldcat.org.

http://orweblog.oclc.org/archives/001485.html

http://orweblog.oclc.org/archives/001487.html

(Lorcan Dempsey's weblog)

New Blog by John Wilkin

John Wilkin's blog: John's blog on libraries, library technology, and pizza.

"I work as Associate University Librarian for Library Information Technology and Technical and Access Services at the University of Michigan Library. I hope to address a number of issues here that require a more sustained narrative than blogs typically involve, and I hope to explore the use of CommentPress to allow feedback and commentary on pieces of those narratives."

http://scholarlypublishing.org/jpwilkin/

Among the first few posts are:

Metasearch vs. Google Scholar and Next Generation Library Systems

(Lorcan Dempsey's weblog)

Circulation Analysis Added to OCLC's WorldCat Collection Analysis Service

"The [OCLC] WorldCat Collection Analysis Service can now evaluate a library's circulation activity to help identify potential collection development opportunities." (OCLC Abstracts)

http://www.oclc.org/collectionanalysis/

Privacy

De Rosa, Cathy, Joanne Cantrell, and Andy Havens, et. al. Sharing, Privacy and Trust in Our Networked World: A Report to the OCLC Membership, Dublin, OH: OCLC, 2007. At: http://www.oclc.org/reports/sharing/default.htm
This report is based on a major survey of the attitudes and perceptions regarding sharing, privacy, and trust on the network of people in Canada, France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States. Like its major predecessors Environmental Scan: Pattern Recognition (2003) and Perceptions of Libraries and Information Resources (2005), it is a weighty document printed in full-color on glossy paper to do justice to all of the tables, piecharts, pictures, and diagrams. However, it is also freely available as a downloadable PDF file, either by individual section or in its entirety. It is chock-full of interesting findings, and well worth spending a lot of time with it, which is almost required given its scope. One tidbit of note, although not all that surprising, is that respondents want to have their privacy protected by default, but also want to have the option to give up that privacy when they wish -- for example, to gain the benefits of social networking. Note: I am employed by OCLC, although I did not have anything to do with this report.
--Reprinted by permission from Current Cites 18(10) (October 2007)

Future of Bibliographic Control Draft Report Webcast

The draft report webcast of the Library of Congress Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control is available. Go to LC's website at

http://www.loc.gov/index.html

Click on "News from the Library" on the right, then click on "Future of Bibliographic Control."

Final report is due November 30, 2007, followed by a 2 week comment period.

(AUTOCAT)

New Issue of D-Lib Magazine

The November/December 2007 issue of D-Lib Magazine is now available at:

http://www.dlib.org/

This issue's articles include:

Manakin: A New Face for DSpace
Scott Phillips, Cody Green, Alexey Maslov, Adam Mikeal, and John Leggett
Texas A&M University

Good Terms - Improving Commercial-Noncommercial Partnerships for Mass Digitization: A Report Prepared by Intelligent Television for RLG Programs, OCLC Programs and Research
Peter B. Kaufman and Jeff Ubois, Intelligent Television

SERU (Shared Electronic Resource Understanding): Opening Up New Possibilities for Electronic Resource Transactions
Karla L. Hahn, Association of Research Libraries

Census of Institutional Repositories in the U.S.: A Comparison Across Institutions at Different Stages of IR Development
Soo Young Rieh, Karen Markey, Beth St. Jean, Elizabeth Yakel, and Jihyun Kim, University of Michigan

The Design and Implementation of an Ingest Function to a Digital Archive
Andrew Waugh, Public Record Office Victoria

Utah Digital Repository Initiative: Building a Support System for Institutional Repositories
Karen Estlund, University of Oregon; and Anna Neatrour, University of Utah

Creating Online Historical Scrapbooks with a User-Friendly Interface: A Case Study
Allison B. Zhang, Washington Research Library Consortium

RDA Update

Outcomes of the October 2007 meeting of the Joint Steering Committee for Development of RDA have been mounted on the JSC Web site:

http://www.collectionscanada.ca/jsc/0710out.html

(from AUTOCAT e-list)

LC Law Team Reclassification Projects

From LC Cataloging Newsline, v. 15, no. 4 (November 2007):

The Law Team, Social Sciences Cataloging Division, has
embarked on several projects to reclassify materials in the Law
Library of Congress. The first such project is a major effort to
reclassify approximately 800,000 "pre class K" titles. Arranged in
the Law Library stacks simply by name of country, these titles
often have duplicate shelf location numbers and are therefore
difficult to retrieve. The Law Library requested that the Law Team
focus first on materials from Latin American countries of strategic
interest to the United States Congress. In fiscal year 2007 (year
ending Sept. 30, 2007) the Law Team reclassified all the Cuban and
Venezuelan treatises and more than eight truckloads of Mexican
titles. These materials are vacuumed and searched by Law Library
staff before being forwarded to the Law Team.

In a second project, the Law Team undertook to reclassify more
than twenty shelves of Dutch books from the "Nederlandse
staatswetten" series. In addition, a sizeable backlog of Swedish
ministerial publications issued before the year 2000 was eliminated
as a result of an agreement with the Law Library that allowed those
items to be classed with the issuing ministry rather than by topic.

Much of the Law Team's energy was devoted to reclassifying the
pre-1970 congressional hearings. Thousands of hearings were
processed by the Law Team during the first year. Under its
agreement with the Law Library, Google has now digitized about
72,000 of these hearings. An estimated 25,000 remain to be
reclassified and digitized. Once a presentation format for the
digitized data is selected and implemented, linking will be
possible between the bibliographic record and the digitized data.
In collaboration with the Cataloging Policy and Support Office and
the Law Team, cataloging automation specialist David Williamson
provided customized software for downloading OCLC records for pre-
1970 congressional hearings that lack bibliographic records in the
LC integrated library management system. This program, Z-
ProcessorHearings, has proven to be very useful, since it
eliminates manual input of much repetitive data. There is a
separate database containing records of the digitized hearings, and
each record contains a barcode that will permit future linking to
the corresponding bibliographic record. The linking enterprise
will make the hearings readily accessible to the Library's users,
while allowing Law Team members to determine whether a particular
hearing has been digitized.

New Legal Search Engine Launched by Thomson West

Westlaw WebPlus is now available on the web and within Westlaw. It's a free Web search engine created by the Westlaw editorial staff to improve web searching by filtering search results based on legal relevance.

Westlaw WebPlus can be used for finding:

• local news or regulations not found on Westlaw
• government agency information related to a transaction or issue
• recent or informal commentary on a legal issue
• company information, direct from the source
• information on a person to supplement public records found on Westlaw
• general Web information about legal topics
  

You can narrow your search results by applying one of three filters: subject, domain type or file format.

Podcasts from Future of the Integrated Library System symposium

The recent Lincoln Trail Libraries System Symposium on the Future of the Integrated Library System was a very successful event and broke expected attendance numbers undoubtedly due to the timeliness of the content. Those who were unable to attend, now have a second chance to hear the presentations due to Lincoln Trail Libraries System having recorded the sessions and having now placed the podcasts on a website for access by all: http://lincolntrail.typepad.com/ilssymposium/

Included are presentations by: Carl Grant, President of CARE Affiliates on the ILS marketplace, from a vendor perspective and a second presentation on Open Source Software as well as presentations by Karen Schneider, author of Free Range Librarian, Rob McGee, President of RMG Consultants, Chip Nilges, OCLC and several others.

OCLC Members Council Proceedings

Proceedings from the October 2007 OCLC Members Council meeting are available at:

http://www.oclc.org/memberscouncil/meetings/2008/

Cataloger's Learning Workshop

"Cataloger's Learning Workshop is a clearinghouse portal for cataloging and metadata training resources for information workers. ... a cooperative project of the Library of Congress, the Program for Cooperative Cataloging, and the Association for Library Collections and Technical Services, a division of the American Library Association."

http://www.loc.gov/catworkshop/

WG ON THE FUTURE OF BIBLIOGRAPHIC CONTROL TO PRESENT DRAFT REPORT ON NOV. 13

WORKING GROUP ON THE FUTURE OF BIBLIOGRAPHIC CONTROL TO PRESENT DRAFT REPORT ON NOV. 13

In November 2006, Deanna Marcum, associate librarian for Library Services at the Library of Congress, convened a Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control to examine the future of bibliographic description in the 21st century in light of advances in search engine technology, the popularity of the Internet and the influx of electronic information resources.

After a year of careful and comprehensive study, the group will present its draft report to Library of Congress managers and staff in the Coolidge Auditorium at 1:30 pm EST on Nov. 13. A live webcast will allow librarians around the country to view the presentation, and a comment period on the draft report will open immediately following the presentation and last until Dec. 15, 2007.

During the past 12 months at three regional group meetings in Mountain View, Calif.; Chicago; and Washington, D.C., invited panelists delivered presentations on various aspects of bibliographic control, and audience members responded with both oral and written comments. The Working Group members have collaborated throughout the year to shape the public meetings and to discuss their ultimate recommendations to the Library of Congress.

“I have been very pleased with the progress of the group and the diligence with which they have gone about writing the report," Marcum said. "The three regional meetings gave them much material to consider, and they have already received a number of comments from members of the library community. I thank them all for their dedication, and I eagerly anticipate their findings and recommendations.”

Information on the Working Group and its findings is available at www.loc.gov/bibliographic-future/. The webcast will be available from that address on November 13.

Members of the Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control, and Organizations Represented

• Chair: José-Marie Griffiths of the School of Information and Library Science (SILS) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• American Association of Law Libraries: Richard Amelung
• American Library Association: Janet Swan Hill, Diane Dates Casey, Sally G. Smit
• Association of Research Libraries: Brian E.C. Schottlaender, Olivia M.A. Madison (Working Group co-chair), Judith Nadler
• Coalition for Networked Information: Clifford A. Lynch
• Google: Daniel Clancy
• Medical Library Association: Diane Boehr
• Microsoft Corporation: Jay Girotto
• National Federation of Abstracting & Indexing Services: Christopher Cole
• OCLC: Lorcan Dempsey
• Program for Cooperative Cataloging: Robert Wolven
• Special Libraries Association: John Latham

The Library of Congress is the world’s preeminent reservoir of knowledge, providing unparalleled integrated resources to Congress and the American people. Founded in 1800, the Library seeks to spark the public’s imagination and celebrate human achievement through its programs and exhibits. In doing so, the Library helps foster the informed and involved citizenry upon which American democracy depends. Today, the Library serves the public, scholars, Members of Congress and their staff—all of whom seek information, understanding and inspiration. Many of the Library’s rich resources and treasures may also be accessed through the Library’s award-winning Web site at www.loc.gov.

Press contact: John Sayers (202) 707-9216; jsay@loc.gov
Public contact: Beth Davis-Brown (202) 707-3301, bbro@loc.gov

New OCLC Report

"The latest OCLC report to the membership, Sharing, Privacy and Trust in Our Networked World, is now available." (Lorcan Dempsey's weblog)

http://www.oclc.org/reports/sharing/

Google Using LC Subject Headings

"One can't help see the irony here ... it appears that Google is using LC subject headings to enhance the search capabilities of Google Book Search." (Cataloging Futures blog)

http://www.catalogingfutures.com/catalogingfutures/2007/10/google-using-lc.html

Virtual Museum of Cataloging and Acquisitions Artifacts

Heidi Lee Hoerman announced the virtual Museum of Cataloging and Acquisitions Artifacts on the AUTOCAT e-list.

http://www.heidihoerman.com/museumca/index.html

Virtual International Authority File

"Name authority files are often national in scope and will be created under different policy regimes. This is the rationale for VIAF (the Virtual International Authority File)." (Lorcan Dempsey's weblog)

http://orweblog.oclc.org/archives/001460.html

Subject Authority Validation Records

"The [Library of Congress] Cataloging Policy and Support Office (CPSO) has begun creating and distributing subject authority records called 'validation records' that represent valid 6XX headings plus subdivision strings (topical, chronological, geographic, and form), including strings with free-floating subdivisions for which subject authority records were previously not made." (Catalogablog)

http://catalogablog.blogspot.com/2007_10_07_archive.html#1992779656103239277#1992779656103239277

Provider Neutral Records for Electronic Integrating Resources

The final recommendations from the Task Force on Provider Neutral Records for Electronic Integrating Resources is available from:

http://www.loc.gov/acq/conser/ProvNeutforE-IRs-Sept-21-2007.pdf

Please send any comments to Les Hawkins (lhaw@loc.gov) or Peter Fletcher (pfletcher@library.ucla.edu) by October 31, 2007.

Posted to AUTOCAT, October 10, 2007.

New Edition: Differences Between, Changes Within

A revised edition (2007) of Differences Between, Changes Within: Guidelines on When to Create a New Record has just been published by ALA/ALCTS. It is available as a free, 38-page PDF at the URL below. It is no longer available in print. (OCLC-CAT e-list)

http://www.ala.org/ala/alctscontent/alctspubsbucket/webpublications/cataloging/newrecord/differences.htm

IFLA Metadata Survey

The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions is "collecting your suggestions to be used in preparing a chapter on metadata decisions for the Digital Library Guidelines." (Catalogablog)

http://catalogablog.blogspot.com/2007_09_30_archive.html#114601048172551605#114601048172551605

Really Modern Library Project

"There's an interesting project afoot in a collaboration between the Institute for the Future of the Book and the Digital Library Federation on the purpose and nature of mass digitization efforts." (ACRLog)

http://acrlblog.org/2007/10/09/iflibrary/

ASIS&T BULLETIN ON FRBR

The entire August/September 2007 issue of the ASIS&T Bulletin is devoted to the FRBR model: its current status and new developments, its impact on the cataloging world, and the critical issues and challenges that FRBR faces.

The issue is available at http://www.asis.org/Bulletin/Aug-07/index.html

Current Issue of CONSERline

The current issue of CONSERline, no. 29, fall 2007 is available at:

http://www.loc.gov/acq/conser/conserline/conserline-29.html

The table of contents:

From the Editor
CONSER Standard Record News
DLF Registry of Digital Masters
Integrating Resources Cataloging
SCCTP
PCC Ad Hoc Series Review Task Force
CONSER Documentation
Membership News
CONSER People

Strategy for Academic Libraries

Lewis, David W. "A Strategy for Academic Libraries in the First Quarter of the 21st Century" College & Research Libraries 68(5)(September 2007): 418-434. - At a library assessment conference a year ago, John Lombardi, then Chancellor of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, explained that although he had depended on libraries and librarians in his professional career, he no longer knew what an academic library should be. Lewis took this message as a challenge to articulate a "strategy for academic libraries in the digital age or at least in its early stages." His strategy has five parts: 1) complete the migration from print to electronic collections; 2) retire legacy print collections; 3) redeploy library space as informal learning spaces; 4) move library tools and resources to where the users are (e.g. course management systems); and 5) shift the focus from purchasing collections to curating locally owned and produced unique and special collections. Whether you agree with his strategy or not, Lewis' article makes for an excellent catalyst to start these discussions with your staff.

--Reprinted by permission from Current Cites 18(9) (September 2007)

Collection Building for Today and Tomorrow

Genco, Barbara. "20 Maxims for Collection Building" Library Journal (15 September 2007)(http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6476396.html). - Barbara Genco summarizes her curriculum for a library school course on collection development principles, theory, and practice in twenty talking points for LJ. Genco embraces emerging and standard technologies as a way to assist librarians in a changing environment. Highlighted issues on her list include security and self-check; user-generated tagging in addition to MARC; content vs. containers; off-site storage and digitization; downloadable digital materials; and the possibility of "one big library." Genco has her eye on the big picture of libraries and collections, and invites us to join her in evaluating what we're doing in our libraries to prepare for the future that's here today.

--Reprinted by permission from Current Cites 18(9) (September 2007)

Managing Communications at Work

Feather, Celeste. "Electronic Resources Communications Management: A Strategy for Success" Library Resources & Technical Services 51(3)(July 2007): 204-211, 228. - In her article "Electronic Resources Communications Management," Celeste Feather discusses how e-resources staff can better handle their lines of communication. She writes, "As libraries face the question of how to provide more services with fewer resources, administrators often expect e-resources acquisitions units to mange more resources with fewer staff than their peer print acquisitions units." We can easily apply this situation to other departments in our libraries -- it seems that we're all trying to do more with less. If you find yourself in a communications black hole, Feather's article addresses the literature of the organization of communications, provides analysis of the types of communication the department is receiving, and makes recommendations on how communication can be improved. She admits that her findings are specific to her library's needs, but many of her suggestions can be applied at any library. It's no surprise that a movement to increase face-to-face communication helped to relieve what Feather calls "information fatigue."

--Reprinted by permission from Current Cites 18(8) (August 2007)

ILS Migration in the 21st Century

Cervone, Frank. "ILS Migration in the 21st Century: Some New Things to Think About This Time Around" Computers in Libraries 27(7)(July/August 2007): 6-8; 60-62. - Cervone pens a timely and useful article on making the tough transition from one integrated library system to another. Given the current upheaval (some forced, some voluntary) in the ILS market, his advice is timely indeed, and those who are not immediately facing such a migration would nonetheless be wise to pin it to their bulletin board for future use. To rephrase an old quote, there are only two kinds of librarians -- those who have weathered a system migration and those who will. In addition to listing the basic steps of a migration, Cervone includes a summary list of typical tasks and some links to open source web application testing tools. Highly recommended for anyone with an ILS and a future.

--Reprinted by permission from Current Cites 18(8) (August 2007)

Planet Cataloging

Planet Cataloging is an automatically-generated aggregation of blogs related to cataloging and metadata designed and maintained by Jennifer Lang and Kevin S. Clarke.
http://planetcataloging.org/

First Monday Podcasts

First Monday now has podcasts. In the latest, Siva Vaidhyanathan discusses how the Google Book Project threatens copyright.

http://www.firstmonday.org/podcasts/index_new.html

Open Library Opens

Open Library is "a wiki platform for combining information about books from various sources to create a single, open source, publicly-built and publicly-modified catalog of books past and present. " (ACRLog)

http://demo.openlibrary.org/

VuFind: A Next-Gen Catalog from Villanova

"A team at the Falvey Memorial Library at Villanova University is developing a next-generation library search interface called VuFind. Currently in the beta stage of development ... the library plans a production release of the software by November 2007." (Smart Libraries)

http://www.vufind.org/

NISO Forum on Understanding the Data Around Us

The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) and Amigos Library Services will host a forum on "Understanding the Data Around Us: Gathering and Analyzing Usage Data" to be held November 1-2, 2007 in Dallas, Texas. Registration is now open. Early bird discount closes October 18th.

http://www.niso.org/news/events_workshops/usage07/index.html

In Google We Trust

"An eye tracking experiment revealed that college student users have substantial trust in Google's ability to rank results by their true relevance to the query. When the participants selected a link to follow from Google's result pages, their decisions were strongly biased towards links higher in position even if the abstracts themselves were less relevant. While the participants reacted to artificially reduced retrieval quality by greater scrutiny, they failed to achieve the same success rate. This demonstrated trust in Google has implications for the search engine's tremendous potential influence on culture, society, and user traffic on the Web."

http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol12/issue3/pan.html

Changes at Google Scholar

"Did you know that Google Scholar has launched its own digitization project, separate from the high-profile Google Book Search mass digitization?"

http://newsbreaks.infotoday.com/nbReader.asp?ArticleId=37309

Step 2 in merging RLG Union Catalog with OCLC WorldCat complete

"Phase 2 of the RLG Union Catalog integration into [OCLC's] WorldCat is complete. Phase 2 involved loading Institution Records into WorldCat from the RLG Union Catalog for institutions that requested that the OCLC RLG Service Center extract their records for them. Some 30 million Institution Records were created. Other activity included creating new Master Records, postings and Institution Records linked to the new Master record for titles not yet represented."

http://www.rlg.org/en/page.php?Page_ID=21014

The Future of the OCLC Cooperative

Neal, James G. "Global Collaboration and the Future of the OCLC Cooperative" is an interesting opinion piece, originally presented at the OCLC Members Council Meeting in Quebec City on February 6, 2007. The author briefly describes a series of 24 things that he wants from OCLC: first, the things he wants OCLC to watch and observe with more intensity; second, the things he wants OCLC to sense and feel with more passion; and then third, the things he wants OCLC to commit to and to do with more investment. portal: Libraries and the Academy, v. 7, no. 3 (July 2007)

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/portal_libraries_and_the_academy/v007/7.3neal.html

UC Libraries collaborate with OCLC on next gen Melvyl Catalog

"The University of California Libraries are working in collaboration with OCLC to pilot a next generation Melvyl Catalog supported by OCLC's WorldCat Local system." (OCLC Abstracts)

http://www.cdlib.org/news/uc_oclc_press_release_20070621.pdf

Using Wikipedia to Extend Digital Collections

"In May 2006, the University of Washington Libraries Digital Initiatives unit began a project to integrate the UW Libraries Digital Collections into the information workflow of our students by inserting links into the online encyclopedia Wikipedia." D-Lib Magazine v. 13, no. 5/6 (May/June 2007)

http://www.dlib.org/dlib/may07/lally/05lally.html

Scan This Book!

Albanese, Andrew R. "Scan This Book!" In the race to digitize the public domain, is the future of the library at stake? An interview with the OpenContent Alliance's Brewster Kahle. Library Journal, August 15, 2007.http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6466634.html

Google Books Article in First Monday

Duguid, Paul. "Inheritance and Loss? A Brief Survey of Google Books" First Monday v. 12, no. 8 (Aug. 6, 2007)

http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue12_8/duguid/index.html

First Tech Scans Blog post

This is just a test of the new blog we can delete it later or modify it.