Open Access Research

This was in one of the emails I've received and I couldn't help but post it. It's a follow up to what I posted on 09/08/2006

House Backs Taxpayer-Funded Research Access
Final Appropriations Bill Mandates Free Access
to NIH Research Findings

Washington, D.C. – July 20, 2007 – In what advocates hailed as a major advance for scientific communication, the U.S. House of Representatives yesterday approved a measure directing the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to provide free public online access to agency-funded research findings within 12 months of their publication in a peer-reviewed journal. With broad bipartisan support, the House passed the provision as part of the FY2008 Labor, HHS, and Education Appropriations Bill.

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Scirus and CiteULike

While doing my research project on link resolvers I saw a mention of Scirus and CiteULike

Library Workout

Jean emailed this to me last year and I am finally posting it here. The Advanced horizontal drawer pull always makes me laugh and reminds of time I did it in ARGO.

Stressful Jobs: Librarians!

Did you know that library job is one of the most stressful? I didn't, but according to BBC News, it is so:

Librarians 'suffer most stress'

Working in libraries has been commonly thought a stress-free job

Fighting fires may sound taxing, chasing criminals demanding, but a new study says that working in a library is the most stressful job of all.

Librarians are the most unhappy with their workplace, often finding their job repetitive and unchallenging, according to psychologist Saqib Saddiq.

He will tell the British Psychological Society that one in three workers suffer from poor psychological health.

The study surveyed nearly 300 people drawn from five occupations.

They were firefighters, police officers, train operators, teachers and librarians and were intended to cover the spectrum, with the librarians first-thought to be the least stressful occupation.

SEE MORE

Freebase: Semantic Web 3.0 database

And the interview with it's creator

Library Facilities

The article below was in the July 10th of the "Inside Higher Ed":

More Than Coffee and Wireless

By Scott Jaschik

For several years now, the talk about libraries as student-oriented buildings has focused on amenities to enhance the visitor’s experience. Students want their coffee and comfy couches on which to chat with their friends during study breaks. Students want to study in groups. And students want to use their laptops, so wireless is key.

None of this, to be sure, has gone away. But much of the buzz about library facilities at this year’s annual meeting of the Society for College and University Planning, in Chicago, had a different focus: adding to library buildings facilities that are explicitly academic, but that haven’t historically been seen as part of the library. Writing centers, classrooms, faculty offices and the like — these are increasingly being placed in libraries, especially those focused on undergraduates.

Some of the same motivations are involved as were evident when Starbucks started to appear in libraries: getting the students in. But the projects being discussed go beyond that to thinking about campus facilities as a means to promote an “integrated” campus (to pick up one of the theme words from the SCUP meeting). Just as student affairs professionals and academic affairs officials agree (in theory, if not always in practice) that they need to work together, so facilities planners are saying that they need to stop looking at major campus buildings — like a library — as serving one function, and to promote a broader vision.

Stephen Johnson, an architect with Pfeiffer Partners, used the plans for a library overhaul at Washington and Lee University as a case study in a session Monday. The firm has worked on a series of projects that aim to show that “there is not just latté drinking, but learning, going on in the library,” Johnson said.

The trend is worldwide. At the University of Otago, in New Zealand, the career center and registrar’s offices have been moved into the library. At the University of British Columbia, some first year classes in the sciences and arts are being offered in the library. Plans for Seattle University’s library would take facilities that are “squirreled away” and bring them “out in the open.” For example, a tutoring center would move into the library.

At Washington and Lee, officials said that a number of traditional design frustrations were part of the desire for a change. The main library is a 1970s building that has never been an architectural gem on a campus proud of its history and the New Classical style of its best known buildings.

Joseph E. Grasso, vice president for administration at Washington and Lee, said that a university is hurt when people don’t feel proud of the library. “We wanted to re-emphasize the library, to reclaim its stature,” he said.

The plan currently under consideration would add 18,000 square feet to the 88,000 square foot facility. Grasso said that 88,000 square feet in the expanded facility will be devoted to “library” functions — although there will be more of an emphasis on shared study space, technology, and the like than is the case now. But the additional 18,000 square feet will be devoted to an auditorium, faculty offices, a writing center and computing offices.

Those facilities will not be placed “under” the library director — reporting lines will remain the same, he said. But the space will be shared.

Grasso noted that this library renovation differs from those of the past in that it is not motivated by the need to expand capacity. While capacity for books will grow moderately, the availability of online materials lessens the need for space in the traditional sense. The main ideas in play are educational — the view that the library should not be seen as isolated from campus life, but central to it.

There is another plus side too, he noted. It is traditionally difficult for fund raisers to bring in big gifts for libraries. Grasso said it is his belief that combining functions will make it easier to raise funds for the project.

Merrily Taylor, the library director, wasn’t at the Chicago meeting, but she confirmed via e-mail that her staff is heavily involved in the plans. Taylor said that the idea of adding other academic functions to libraries is “quite a trend now in library buildings and renovations,” and that this is consistent with the idea of the library as a “new learning space.” While she said that “the basic library functions have to work effectively in any facility,” she said there is “a lot of synergy” between those functions and other academic programming of the sort that may soon be sharing her space.

At one point in the session, Grasso asked those present for a show of hands on whether they were in the planning stages for renovating their libraries. About 40 hands shot up. And many of those present were taking detailed notes during the session.

Cool librarians

I was planning to take a summer break, but this great article in New York Times was being sent to all the listserves I am subscribing, plus a friend of mine from New York had called me about it today too, so I can't help but post.

NYTimes July 8, 2007

A Hipper Crowd of Shushers

By Kara Jesella

ON a Sunday night last month at Daddy’s, a bar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, more than a dozen people in their 20s and 30s gathered at a professional soiree, drinking frozen margaritas and nibbling store-bought cookies. With their thrift-store inspired clothes and abundant tattoos, they looked as if they could be filmmakers, Web designers, coffee shop purveyors or artists.

When talk turned to a dance party the group had recently given at a nearby restaurant, their profession became clearer.

“Did you try the special drinks?” Sarah Gentile, 29, asked Jennifer Yao, 31, referring to the colorfully named cocktails.

“I got the Joy of Sex,” Ms. Yao replied. “I thought for sure it was French Women Don’t Get Fat.”

Ms. Yao could be forgiven for being confused: the drink was numbered and the guests had to guess the name. “613.96 C,” said Ms. Yao, cryptically, then apologized: “Sorry if I talk in Dewey.”

That would be the Dewey Decimal System. The groups’ members were librarians. Or, in some cases, guybrarians.

[snip]

Librarians? Aren’t they supposed to be bespectacled women with a love of classic books and a perpetual annoyance with talkative patrons — the ultimate humorless shushers?

Not any more. With so much of the job involving technology and with a focus now on finding and sharing information beyond just what is available in books, a new type of librarian is emerging — the kind that, according to the Web site Librarian Avengers, is “looking to put the ‘hep cat’ in cataloguing.”

[snip]

[snip] And, in real life, there are an increasing number of librarians who are notable not just for their pink-streaked hair but also for their passion for pop culture, activism and technology.

“We’re not the typical librarians anymore,” said Rick Block, an adjunct professor at the Long Island University Palmer School and at the Pratt Institute School of Information and Library Science, both graduate schools for librarians, in New York City.


“When I was in library school in the early ’80s, the students weren’t as interesting,” Mr. Block said.

Since then, however, library organizations have been trying to recruit a more diverse group of students and to mentor younger members of the profession.

“I think we’re getting more progressive and hipper,” said Carrie Ansell, a 28-year-old law librarian in Washington.

[snip]

Still, these are high-tech times. Why are people getting into this profession when libraries seem as retro as the granny glasses so many of the members of the Desk Set wear?“Because it’s cool,” said Ms. Gentile, who works at the Brooklyn Museum.

“People I, going in, would never have expected were from the library field,” she said. “Smart, well-read, interesting, funny people, who seemed to be happy with their jobs.”

[snip]

Since matriculating to Palmer, Ms. Falgoust has met plenty of other like-minded librarians at places such as Brooklyn Label, a restaurant, and at Punk Rope, an exercise class. “They’re everywhere you go,” she said.

[snip]

How did such a nerdy profession become cool — aside from the fact that a certain amount of nerdiness is now cool? Many young librarians and library professors said that the work is no longer just about books but also about organizing and connecting people with information, including music and movies.

And though many librarians say that they, like nurses or priests, are called to the profession, they also say the job is stable, intellectually stimulating and can have reasonable hours ... . [snip]

[snip]

Michelle Campbell, 26, a librarian in Washington, said that librarianship is a haven for left-wing social engagement, which is particularly appealing to the young librarians she knows. [snip]

Ms. Campbell added that she became a librarian because it “combined a geeky intellectualism” with information technology skills and social activism.

Jessamyn West, 38, an editor of “Revolting Librarians Redux: Radical Librarians Speak Out” ... [snip] agreed that many new librarians are attracted to what they call the “Library 2.0” phenomenon. “It’s become a techie profession,” she said.

In a typical day, Ms. West might send instant and e-mail messages to patrons, many of who do their research online rather than in the library. She might also check Twitter, MySpace and other social networking sites, post to her various blogs and keep current through MetaFilter and RSS feeds. Some librarians also create Wikis or podcasts.

At the American Librarian Association's annual conference last month in Washington, there were display tables of graphic novels, manga and comic books. In addition to a panel called “No Shushing Required,” there were sessions on social networking and zines and one called “Future Friends: Marketing Reference and User Services to Generation X.”

[snip]

Source: New York Times