NASIG Newsletter

22nd CONFERENCE
VISION SESSION

A New Approach to Service Discovery and Resource Delivery
Daniel Chudnov, Library of Congress, Office of Strategic Initiatives
Reported by Yumin Jiang

Daniel Chudnov, formerly of the Yale Center for Medical Informatics, and now of the Office of Strategic Initiatives at the Library of Congress, gave an eye-opening presentation on using COinS and unAPI to facilitate finding and citing information resources, and to integrate scholarly library resources with innovative Web resources and applications. 

The focus of Mr. Chudnov’s presentation was simplicity.  Using the digital media player iTunes as an example, Chudnov asked why libraries cannot work like iTunes, which permits its users to easily connect with each other and share music.  Even with OpenURL and link resolvers, he explained, it still takes many clicks for a patient and savvy user to get from a journal citation to the actual full text.  In addition, there is an apparent disconnect between library resources and many of the Web 2.0 websites and applications.  OpenURL is difficult to understand, inconsistently implemented by information providers, and requires service pre-coordination.  How can OpenURLs be improved to help users find and use library resources?  How can library catalogs/websites and other great Web resources and applications be connected?  Chudnov thinks that new standards such as COinS and unAPI will be able to address these issues.

COinS, acronym for ContextObject in Span, is a specification to render OpenURL to HTML.  This allows client software to retrieve bibliographic metadata and to use an OpenURL resolver to find a mediated link.  The principal advantage of using COinS, rather than giving a static OpenURL, is that the client can determine which resolver to use.  For example, a Yale scholar visiting another institution will be able to access Yale-subscribed resources via Yale’s link resolver instead of the host institution’s.  OCLC has recently established the OpenURL Resolvers Registry.  It includes an OpenURL resolver registry for user input of resolver data, and a gateway which can redirect OpenURLs to registered resolvers based on the requester’s IP address.  If both the library and website publisher participate in this project, a user searching for information will find an item, click a link to the gateway and be taken directly to an OpenURL resolver maintained by his or her home library.

Currently, COinS has been adopted by a number of websites and applications, including: Wikipedia; WorldCat; WordPress, a blog publishing system; LibX, a Firefox extension that provides direct access to selected libraries’ resources; and Zotero, a Firefox extension that manages bibliographic information from Web resources.  With COinS, we can achieve a complete and smooth interconnection between library catalogs, Web resources, and Web applications.  For example, a user finds a citation in WorldCat, saves it in Zotero, adds it to Wikipedia; the next person sees the citation in Wikipedia, saves it in Zotero, adds it to his blog, and so on. 

Together with COinS, OpenURL holds the promise of wider, easier access to library resources from various Web resources and applications.  However, as Chudnov reminds us, people “want stuff, not meta-stuff.”  Can people simply re-use library resources within new Web applications?  That is, can users copy items they see online and paste them into desktop applications or other Web applications such as blogs and photo-sharing services?  unAPI provides a method for copying rich digital objects out of any Web application.  It is a tiny HTTP API, application programming interface, for the few basic operations necessary to copy discrete, identified content from any kind of Web application.  A direct benefit of employing unAPI on a website is that it allows other Web users to easily take a piece of its content to create new resources.  In Chudnov’s words, “You see stuff, you get stuff, and you pick the format.”  The unAPI specification is less than two pages and requires very few changes in Web templates.  It can be added to all library resources such as the OPAC, institutional repository, journals, metasearch, and link resolver.  Currently, two major applications using unAPI are Zotero and WordPress.  Chudnov hopes that more website publishers will adopt this new specification.

The next frontier in information services is service links.  Examples are the set of buttons next to an article in a journal or major media websites.  They permit users to email, save, print, and cite in various formats, or send to a bookmarking application such as del.ici.ous.  Libraries can use OpenURL to facilitate this kind of service. OpenURL with COinS can provide user-generated service coordination, and unAPI allows users to choose various formats of the same object.  Chudnov proposed a new specification nicknamed SLAPI, Service Links API, which will fully integrate library resources with free Web resources at the user’s end. 

Finally, Chudnov explored how libraries can work like iTunes, letting users find their friends’ libraries.  One approach is to mesh metasearch and link resolvers, since they work similarly from the user’s perspective.  OpenSearch, a collection of Web technologies that allows publishing of search results in standard format, can further simplify the search process.  When a user’s Web browser knows where a user wants to search and resolve, coupled with SLAPI, a user can access his institutional resources anywhere on the Web, from citation directly into full text.  With Zero Configuration Networking technology, the user will not even need to configure his browser. 

In this ideal environment, everyone visiting your network automatically finds your search/resolver interface, and everyone else you visit finds your institutional resolver. Furthermore, no installation is required on the user’s part.  This full circle, coupled with SLAPI, contends Chudnov, is a new approach to service discovery and resource delivery.

22nd CONFERENCE
VISION SESSION

Hurry Up, Please. It’s Time – State of Emergency
Karen Schneider, ALA Techsource
Reported by Janet Arcand

Karen Schneider, librarian and noted writer at ALA Techsource and her own site, freerangelibrarian, gave a stimulating and thought-provoking presentation.   It was centered upon the contention that librarians have allowed outside entities from the commercial market to take over the traditional areas of responsibilities of librarians.  She likened the incremental trend of librarians ceding more and more of the selection and decision-making process to the vendors, through outsourcing of collection development and buying into package deals, as the “long slow boiling of the frog” so that it doesn’t know it’s being cooked.

Librarians have a public responsibility. They are in the profession of “memory work,” ensuring that the published historical record is not corrupted so that later selective memory can impose a more romantic or biased view of the past.  What might have seemed like a useful tool, for example, the Google Library project, really has drawbacks if you look at the fine print. The Google Library Project comes from a commercial company which is imposing user restrictions upon their library partners, forbidding them in some instances from performing what has been their traditional professional duty, making information available to members of the public.

Information is being “disappeared” when editions of a work can be changed or disappear from the Web (as has been seen in the case of some government documents).  Another alarming trend is for publishers not to allow post-cancellation access to online material for which the library paid in previous years. 

Small presses produce significant material which large corporate publishers are not interested in publishing, for a fairly nominal economic reward and with narrow profit margins. The continued existence of these presses is at risk since their profit margins are threatened by the impact of the proposed new postal rates.  Time-Warner’s clout has influenced postal rates to be less costly for the large corporate publishers, and more costly for small presses and anyone who uses the media material rate.  Librarians should be leading the effort to lobby against these discriminatory rates. 

There are some current projects which are designed from a librarian perspective, to ensure continued access to the public record.  OCA (Open Content Alliance) is a nonprofit group driven by librarians and creating an alternative to Google Book.   LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe) and CLOCKSS (Controlled LOCKSS), for copyright-controlled content, are also librarian-grown initiatives designed to “ensure the long-term preservation of digitally published scholarly materials”.  The digital information cannot disappear, since it is not held at a single site.  Librarian participation and support of efforts such as these will put librarians back in the position of being stewards of the common librarian trust.

22nd CONFERENCE
VISION SESSION 

The Evolution of Reading and Writing in the Networked Era
Bob Stein, USC Annenberg Center, Institute for the Future of the Book
Reported by Mary Bailey

In the early days of books, when professors made notes in the margins and students added their notes when they read the same book, an ongoing conversation was created.  Bob Stein proposes that the future of the book is an ongoing conversation in the margin of the electronic book.  Turning the world of authorship and copyright on end, the book as we know it, published in a definitive form, never to be changed, would no longer exist.

An MIT project in 1981 began adding an audio/visual component to books.  Designed to enhance the book by answering the questions a reader might have as they read, it allowed the reader to control the speed, to reread sections, and to stop and think about what had happened in the book.  In effect, it was user driven rather than producer driven. 

Moving to 2004 and our remix culture, we are now talking about networked books, with comments added by readers. Stories could change before they are told.  Books could be written in chapters with comments added before the next chapter is written, thus creating an entirely new writing process, and possibly a new form of authorship. Software, called Sophie, has been developed which enables not only the writing and comment component but also audio versions, an interactive glossary, running commentaries of musical selections and more.

Consider blogs. We think, we write, we create, and others comment. We think, we write again, and others write again (we hope).  A new creation appears.  However, who is the author or creator now?  Is the author speaking, are those ommenting also authors, or is the book now speaking?  The book becomes dynamic and is no longer limited to text and static photos or illustrations; it now contains video and links to other sites.

If the work is always in process, will there ever be a version for copyright?  Will there ever be a final authoritative version?  Will copyright be necessary or will it become another piece of history? Will the original article become the least important piece and the discussion more interesting than the book or article? 

The challenge of the future will be how to deal with the changes. Bob Stein asks, “Given the vast amount of information and conversation available on any subject, should it be a goal to enable a single individual to master it?  What will it mean to be ‘human’ in the age of digital networking?  What is the definitive version or does anyone care?” 

In Bob Stein’s future, the book and reading are no longer a solitary pastime, but an interactive work developed by all who are interested. 

VISION SESSION

What’s a Serial When You’re Running on Internet Time?

T. Scott Plutchak, Director, Lister Hill Library of the Health Sciences, University of Alabama-Birmingham
Reported by Gaele Gillespie 

From his perspective as a health science library director, a journal editor, and a member of a scholarly communications committee that is charting the future of the Medical Library Association, Scott Plutchak thinks the choices librarians make now for the utility and viability of serials will have as great an impact as when the first serial, The Philosophical Transactions, was published in London in 1665.  The current times, he feels, are equally as momentous for serials due to changing formats, open access, institutional repositories, and preservation. 

ARL’s definition of a serial is “a publication issued in successive parts, usually at regular intervals, and as a rule, intended to be continued indefinitely.  Serials include periodicals, newspapers, annual reports, yearbooks, etc., memoirs, proceedings, and transactions of societies.”  It’s a definition which is rooted in the physicality of its design and defined as something that can be counted.  How will that survive in the future of such fuzzy boundaries, where we have to differentiate between an e-journal, an e-book, a database?  Definitions are useful, but they can also hold us back and keep us from thinking creatively.  The functions of a serial will still need to happen, and our job is to figure out how to implement those functions in our libraries. 

Any new technology has a definite life cycle.  Many older ones do not disappear; they find a new niche.  The newest technology builds on the older one; there is an innovative stage, then it stabilizes, and things can be done with it that were not possible with the old technology.  This is what will happen with e-journal technology.  Print, the older technology, is not going away.  E-journal technology is currently in its early stages.   

Even though researchers want to read journal articles, not whole journals, e-journal literature has lots of competition:  other e-resources, such as rich databanks, grey literature, blogs, wikis, social networks, etc.  As librarians, we must keep our focus wide and be aware of these new resources and how one is replacing another.  Who is going to organize all these sources of information and get users to them? 

In this electronic environment, the journal article is more participatory, interactive, there’s more linked data, and it is less central to its journal as a whole.  However, it is also easier to change data in the e-journal articles and never track the change in the print version.  What happens to the scientific record when it’s so easy to change?  When there are two articles, both with the same title, the same author, and both are indexed, which one is the “real” one?  There is a NISO Working Group wrestling with identifying and defining versions of journal articles. 

From his perspective as a small society publisher of an open access journal, Mr. Plutchak says he often wonders what “open access” will mean in the future.  Most publishers and authors want to get information out as widely and as quickly as possible.  Librarians want this, too, because our users demand increased access at greater speed.  Therefore, the current adversarial position of librarians and publishers is unfortunate.  We used to talk to each other about our shared interests.  By definition, open access eliminates subscription barriers as much as possible.  Revenue based on a distribution stream made sense in the print world, but not in the electronic world.  From the publisher’s perspective, it is still all about the money.  It still costs to produce an e-journal, and there is not much new revenue to count on, plus library budgets are not increasing. Librarians are continually weighing what things need to continue to be done and what things do not.  From his perspective, money should be taken from library budgets to do the following:

 1. Market institutional repositories.  Get the faculty to submit articles to the repository rather than to publishers who keep the copyright and sell the scholarship back to libraries through subscriptions for which libraries pay quite a lot of money.  Then librarians need to gather and organize knowledge within their institutions and make it available to the rest of the world.  This would move scholarship forward.

 2. Preservation. In the print model, publishers published journals and assumed libraries would store all the journals they subscribed to and the publishers would not need to do anything more after selling and shipping the journals to libraries.  In the electronic model, the scale and complexity of the infrastructure and operation necessary to preserve core journals in electronic format is far beyond what any one library can support.  So   librarians think publishers should maintain the electronic archive and provide for perpetual access as part of licensing terms.   We are in danger of losing a generation of scholarly literature, so how is the record going to be reconstructed?  How will librarians ensure that journal articles remain stable and can be found and used by future scholars?  Two initiatives arising out of partnerships between academic institutions and not-for-profit entities that offer permanent archiving of electronic journals are: 1) LOCKSS, Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe (www.lockss.org), initiated by Stanford University Libraries, is open source software that provides librarians with an easy and inexpensive way to collect, store, preserve, and provide access to their own local copy of authorized content they purchase;   2) PORTICO (www.portico.org), a collaborative initiative based on successful aspects of programs like JSTOR and Project Muse, is a new engagement between publishers and libraries that balances their needs and establishes the necessary funding to provide a permanent archive of electronic scholarly journals. 

The job of librarians is not to build better libraries.  It is about cultivating particular skills and talents to help our communities manage knowledge.  How are we going to do this? The only way we can do this is to stop doing the things that are no longer relevant so that we can concentrate on the more relevant things, such as: 

1. Relationships between librarians and publishers are the key.  We need to find new ways to assess needs and new ways to fund them.  We need to get out of our libraries and meet with faculty in their world and find out how they are doing research and what they are using to do that research.  These should be informal, one-on-one meetings.  It is not just public service librarians who need to get out and do this, but all librarians. 

2. We need to be able to understand the economics of scholarly communication and publishing.  Publishers must get a better understanding of universities and how different they are.

3. We need to give more attention to cataloging electronic resources, and that cataloging should not be done for our benefit as catalogers or librarians, but to benefit our users.  We need to be part of developing better tools to make electronic resources available to our users.

4. We must give up trying to be perfect about everything we do.

5. We must be bold and experiment.  The world of electronic technology is ambiguous and imprecise, so we cannot try to make it be precise.  We need to be clear about our objectives and be willing to evaluate and try new or different approaches.  If something we try does not work, so what?  We should just intelligently reconsider it and try a new tack.  We need to cultivate smart, creative people who are willing to take risks and create the future.

6. Journal articles will become shorter, more like an abstract, and will link to the actual data, rather than being “the end” in themselves.  There needs to be improved or reformed, simplified peer review that is separate from the journal article.  For example, in the American Philosophical Society peer review process, the article is written, the society reviews it, approves it, gives it the stamp of a professional society, then sends the article back to the author.  The author puts it in a repository and makes it available worldwide.   

We are working in a time full of challenges and opportunities, and what a fabulous time it is!  The authors and scientists of 1665 would envy us!

VISION SESSION

All the News That’s Fit to Digitize:  Creating Colorado’s Historic Newspaper Collection

Brenda Bailey-Hainer, Director of Networking & Resource Sharing, Colorado State Library
Reported by Gaele Gillespie 

Brenda Bailey-Hainer gave an eye-opening presentation about Colorado’s Historic Newspaper Collection (CHNC).  In less than one hour, Ms. Bailey-Hainer not only clearly explained the process behind the creation of Colorado’s Historic Newspaper Collection and emphasized its underlying value, but she did it in a way that would inspire almost any listener to champion similar projects in their own state.   

The project has been a partnership between the non-profit Collaborative Digitization Program (CDP), the Colorado Sate Library (CSL), and the Colorado Historical Society (CHS). The initial grants that funded the project, awarded by the Collaborative Digitization Program, are now over. The Colorado Sate Library will assume long-term management for the project, and the Colorado Historical Society permits use of the microfilm collection. Ms. Bailey-Hainer’s discussion was organized in four parts: (1) overview of the project, (2) database accessibility & user reactions, (3) funding model and (4) future plans.

OVERVIEW OF THE PROJECT 

By Fall 2006, Colorado’s Historic Newspaper Collection (CHNC) will contain more than 110 statewide newspapers dating between 1859 and 1923, representing four languages: English, German, Spanish, and Swedish; cover 65 counties; and have more than 500,000 digitized pages.  As of April/May 2006, there are 91 newspapers dating between 1859 and 1923, representing 49 cities, 36 counties, and 315,000 digitized pages.  Although the long-term goal is to be as comprehensive as possible between the years 1859 and 1928, the decision was made to begin with the earliest newspapers first, since those published prior to 1923 are in the public domain, and then pursue those published after 1923 once they have copyright clearance.  The decision was made to use Olive software with a robust search engine.  

Getting the newspapers’ content into Colorado’s Historic Newspaper Collection, hereafter referred to as The Collection, includes the following process:  Once the microfilm is available from the Colorado State Historical Society or other state historical societies, the master negative is pulled from the archives, a duplicate is made, and it is shipped to Israel, the location of the Olive software provider, where the processing takes place.  The Olive software scans the film at 300 dip and performs a “distillation” on images to obtain the best possible image.  The image is put into an XML format and burned on CDs instead of using FTP.  The Olive software is also used to provide the searching interface and database structure.   

DATABASE ACCESSIBILITY & USER REACTIONS 

The project staff wanted to provide users with very precise search results, and there were several challenges to make the collection accessible to the public.  Formatting used for older newspapers was non-standard, so it was difficult for the Olive software to find matches on search terms.  In addition, there were numerous title changes for each newspaper and over time, the names of cities changed or ceased to exist, and county boundaries changed.  Archaic or historic language that was used at the time a newspaper was published may be unknown or unrecognizable to modern readers.  The solution was to implement keyword only, with no subject headings added at the present time. The sheer size of the database added to the challenges, as some words are not searchable at all or result in too many hits, for example, Kit Carson. 

Colorado institutions provide access to The Collection in several ways.  The Collection is cataloged and displayed in the OPAC.  There is a link to The Collection on the library web site as well as a link from the “Databases by Subject” list.  The project staff would also like to provide a link up front on the web page for each participating library, but this has not happened yet.  The Collection is included in the list of regional history magazines and newspapers.  There are two links that project staff would like to provide but have not been able to yet:  an up-front link to The Collection on the web page for each participating library and a way to link directly to the newspapers themselves.  The problem of how to get to individual newspapers is particularly thorny, so until that can be provided, the link currently defaults to the regional map as described below.   

Ms. Bailey-Hainer conducted several searches to demonstrate access and use of the database.  At the point of log-in, the system automatically asks the user what type of computer access they are using.  In case they are not using a high-resolution type of access, the system offers a different interface if a lower-speed interface is necessary.  Cookies are enabled to retain settings.  Users can access newspapers by region, which creates and displays a map.  Choosing the map and clicking on a region within it results in a list of newspapers for that region.   From a selected list of titles, the user can search a single newspaper, a group of newspapers, or search all 91 newspapers.  A searcher can look at an individual article or look at the article in context as part of the full page.  When looking at an article in context, it shows any hand-written notes, etc., that were part of the printed newspaper, a feature that researchers and historians really appreciate.  A keyword search, for example, the town of Wray, results in a list of four newspapers and cites the beginning and ending date range for each newspaper. Clicking on any of the four newspapers displays Date / Name of Paper / Headline / Number of Words in Heading.  Clicking on “Headline” brings up the article with “Wray” highlighted.  Clicking on the “Reader” icon pulls up a full page in context with the article highlighted.  A search by word combination for example, “Wray + Sewer,” results in a 1921 article with tabs across the top. Choosing the “Browse All” tab displays all 91 newspapers with Title / Town / County information.  Select “Title” and a drop-down calendar displays. Choose “Date” and an entire newspaper displays.  The user can then jump from page to page or several pages within that newspaper.  A “Feature Topics” tab was created by hand to include Colorado-specific topics, for example, Sand Creek Massacre. 

The Collection has been well received, and use is steadily increasing.  The first year The Collection went public, there were 1.3 million views.  For the current year through April 2006, there have been 1.1 billion views.  It is a “sticky” site, which means a viewer stays for 35-40 minutes per use.  A user survey, co-created by Utah and Virginia, was mounted at The Collection, and the results show most users are doing family history or are history researchers.  Fifty-two percent of those taking the survey are over 60 years of age; the next-highest age range is 40-60 years old.  Most users live in Colorado, but many are out-of-state users. 

FUNDING MODEL & FUTURE PLANS 

Originally, the project was funded by two grants awarded to the project partners, the Colorado Digital Program (CDP), the Colorado State Library (CSL), and the Colorado Historical Society (CHS): a Library Services & Technology Act (LSTA, the only federal legislation that funds libraries exclusively) grant in the amount of $120,000 and an Institute of Museum & Library Services (IMLS, an independent federal grant-making agency) grant of $249,232.  This start-up money paid for “basics” such as the Olive software, the hardware and server, and one terabyte of storage.  Currently the project is funded primarily by donors and contributors.  The project has received more than $325,000 from libraries, museums, friends’ groups, city governments, and foundations.  There are still 22 million pages available for future digitization. 

There are several collection development policies that have grown out of the project and will shape its future.  As mentioned, the original grant money is gone and the project is currently driven by donations.  Fundraising efforts will target counties with no newspapers online.  Project staff are still hunting for the earliest available published issue for some historical newspapers published in Colorado which may be held in some other state’s collection.  A continuing focus will be to obtain and process issues of newspapers published prior to1923.  Issues published after 1923 are no longer in the public domain and pose copyright concerns, which will make getting access to them more time consuming and labor intensive.  The copyright concerns are many.  Digital processing of the newspapers is done from microfilm and project staff need to work from the negatives.  The Colorado Historical Society paid for some of the original microfilming, but to process the earliest reels is very complicated.  They must identify and work with format owners, i.e., the owner of the microfilm negative of the newspaper, and the content owners.  After 1923, that is the newspaper owner and/or their heirs, writers, photographers, and newswire services.  The Colorado Historic Newspaper Collection project has several long-term goals:

• Add more newspapers monthly.
• Add more featured groups of articles.
• Add a history of each newspaper.
• Add a Colorado timeline.
• Research access feasibility of adding keywords and/or subject headings to newspaper articles. Adding these access points would be very time consuming and needs to be carefully researched and weighed against the other goals.  
• Upgrade to OAI harvestable version of the Olive software.
• Make the collection Z39.50 compatible.

In closing, Brenda Bailey-Hainer said the Colorado Historic Newspaper Collection is a great public relations project for a campus or company.  Such a successful and valuable project, especially one that is also popular with users, is an incentive to those who work with historic newspapers to obtain a grant and do a similar project.  Please visit the site and search The Collection at www.ColoradoHistoricNewspapers.org. 

VISION SESSION 

Things Fall Apart

Robin Sloan, Online Studio Futurist, Current TV
Reported by Ellen Barrow 

Robin Sloan, formerly of the Poynter Institute and News University and now of the website Current TV, presented a brilliant program entitled “Things Fall Apart.” Sloan can best be described as an “online studio futurist.” His program featured the film presentation 2014, about the demise of print journalism and the rise of information conglomerates such as “Googlezon,” a possible combination of Amazon.com and Google. The film paints a stark vision of change that radically alters how we should think of information in its present forms: print, electronic, blogs, wikis, and podcasts.  

All of these entities present to librarians a challenge to wake up to the new possibilities of information controlled by ordinary people, not only editors, journalists, or educators.  Everyone will have a stake in how information is gathered, edited, sold, exchanged, and categorized.   Sloan predicted that by the years 2009-2011, libraries would be popular again with people checking out books that they could scan, an activity which will be encouraged by a fictional “Access Army,” organized on the precept of “no price, no password!” This trend will continue, according to Sloan, until 2016, at which time the Internet will eat through everything and the “Access Alliance” (“A” for access) will be formed.  Information as we now know it will cease to exist in its present form. People will be able to edit, create, and categorize information without “Googlezon” companies, journalists, editors, scholars, publishers, and so on. People will count on each other and their social groups to obtain information. There will be open access to everything.  Robin Sloan predicts that an entity called “EPIC” will develop where computers will “understand” books and people will be able to produce, change and restructure the flow of information.  Some of these events are happening now, or are close to happening with technologies like ipods, wikis, and blogs, but we are just scratching the surface. People will be the producers of information based on their communities’ needs and their own desires. Information will be fluid and flexible, not unlike a biological cell, evolving and duplicating like the other cells surrounding it.  Biology will have an impact on this revolution of access to information–people not PCs will make the difference.   

We have to be open to these changes and participate actively in the exchange of emerging technologies and ideas. As librarians we must continue to encourage access as much as possible and ensure that everyone who needs information gets it. We must expect and welcome the fact that how we use information in the current situation will have a direct effect on the future. Access for all starts now!  All of these issues reduce down to one biological element—people are the key to access and the control of information. Whether the future is holistic, human and growing when it comes to information or stark, sellable and closed is up to all of us.