Topics of General Interest from the National Slavic Conference

Lost U.S. Silent Films

At ASEEES, the national Slavic conference I heard a fascinating report from Patrick Loughney of the Library of Congress about the rediscovery of lost U.S. silent films in Russia. Apparently 75 percent of all feature films made by U.S. studios between 1912 and 1930 have been lost. One of the reasons is that silver was used in producing the films, and the studios recycled film stock as much as possible. In 2010, 195 lost U.S. films were discovered in Gosfil'mofond, the Russian film archive. These were silent films that were sold to the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 1930s and shown there. In most cases the English titles have been lost because they were replaced by not always accurate Russian ones. Gosfil'mofond has restored and made digital copies of 10 of these films on DVDs and has given them to the Library of Congress. More will follow. We were able to see clips from several of these films, and Loughney showed in his comments that these and subsequently restored films will change the history of U.S. cinema as it's been understood up to now. The Library of Congress is looking for lost U.S. silent films in the archives of other countries as well.

How to Keep Track of Digitization Projects

Several sessions focused on the various Slavic digitization projects being carried out by libraries, both in the U.S. and abroad, and the difficulty in keeping track of what's now available. The Digitization subcommittee of the Librarian committee of ASEEES is in the process of compiling a national register of U.S.-based Slavic digitization projects. So far they're being divided into exhibitions, digital collections, such as Hathi, subscription databases, and sites that add value to content by marking them up, not just OCRing them, to allow searching in more depth. Some random examples: Yiddish books of the Russian avant-garde; Soviet posters; Gulag history; children's books of the early Soviet era; historical maps; Russian satirical journals.

This project, however, will not address the mammoth digitization projects now being carried out by all three national libraries in Russia--the State Library in Moscow, the National Library in St. Petersburg, and the new Boris Yeltsin library, also in St. Petersburg. In sessions devoted to these Russian projects I was amazed at the sheer volume of what they are making available: historical documents by region, history of Russian law, Russian history textbooks going back to the 18th century, the history of Russian foreign relations, the history of the Russian Orthodox Church, as well as the Soviet atheist movement, pre-1923 books, journals, newspapers, images, etc.

It's not clear to me how we as librarians can help researchers take advantage of these very valuable resources. As Erika Spencer of LC asked in her paper about creating the U.S. Slavic Digital Register, How do we review these projects? How do we keep track of them? How do we create a national bibliography of them?

Open Access to Mideast and Islamic Resources (AMIR)

Access to Mideast and Islamic Resources (AMIR)

This project began as a consequence of a series of conversations in 2010 between Charles Jones and Peter Magierski at NYU about the need for a tool to assemble and distribute information on open access material relating to the Middle East.

It uses Jones' Ancient World Online (AWOL) as a model.

We welcome and encourage active participation and will add interested parties to the authors' list upon request. 

 Notable entries include:

• Alphabetical List of Open Access Journals in Middle Eastern Studies
• Alphabetical List of Open Access Islamic Manuscripts Collections

  

Open Access at ISAW

Open Access at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World

In recognition and support of Open Access Week, this post lists digital resources currently available from ISAW and its collaborators under the terms of open licenses:

Ancient World Image Bank

View and download over 2,000 free digital images of sites and objects from the ancient world, contributed by ISAW faculty, staff and friends.

Content License: Creative Commons Attribution

Ancient World Online

Find out about all the latest online and open-access material relating to the ancient world, regardless of where it's published.

Content License: Creative Commons Attribution No Derivatives Share-Alike

Papyri.info

Search and browse over 80,000 ancient Greek, Latin and Coptic documents preserved on papyrus and other materials. Images, texts, translations and descriptions contributed by scholars and institutions around the world. Funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Content License (texts and descriptive information): Creative Commons AttributionSoftware License: GNU General Public License

Pleiades

Use, create and share information about ancient places, spaces and geographic names. Over 30,000 places registered (and growing). Funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Content License: Creative Commons Attribution
Software Licenses: GNU General Public License and other open-source licenses

ACRL/NY Annual Symposium "The Global Librarian: Information without Borders"

Registration is Now Open:

ACRL/NY Annual Symposium "The Global Librarian: Information without Borders"
Friday, December 2, 2011

Academic librarians serve increasingly diverse populations, across a variety of platforms at home and around the world. As higher education becomes more global - and mobile - physical distance is no longer a barrier to teaching and learning. Through innovated use of progressive technologies, academic librarians are mastering the skills needed to navigate this expanding environment. At this symposium, we will see how information is not bound by physical borders - nor is the global librarian.

Home, Click Registration: http://acrlnysymp2011.wordpress.com/

Op-Art

Checking Out
By Shannon O'Neill

Published: October 15, 2011
New York Times SundayReview,
the Opinion Pages

A short editorial and multimedia slide show on the appearance vs. function of libraries.

"AS a librarian and archivist, I am often asked if I believe that, one day, libraries will disappear...."

Preprint: "Project Portfolio Management for Academic Libraries: A Gentle Introduction"

Vinopal, Jennifer. “Project Portfolio Management for Academic Libraries: A Gentle
Introduction.” College & Research Libraries (Anticipated Publication Date: May 2012).

Abstract:
In highly dynamic, service-oriented environments like academic libraries, much staff time is spent on initiatives to implement new products and services to meet users’ evolving needs. Yet even in an environment where a sound project management process is applied, if we’re not properly planning, managing, and controlling the organization’s work in the aggregate, we will have difficulty achieving our strategic goals. Project portfolio management provides a way to ensure that this project work supports the organization’s strategic vision, the active projects represent the highest priorities of the organization, and there are enough resources to accomplish all the project work at hand.

Also available via my blog, Library Sphere.

ExL ENUG Conference

I will be attending this regional meeting (and giving a presentation):

Ex Libris Northeast Users Group
2011 Conference Program
October 27-28
University of Bridgeport, Bridgeport, CT

Keynote Presentation (Friday, 8:50AM)

Laura Guy, Systems Librarian at the Arthur Lakes Library,
Colorado School of Mines, will present Avoiding
DATApocalypse, a discussion of data management and
policies for NSF funding recipients

Conference program-
http://www.emausers.org/program.html

The Place of Libraries in the
American University:
Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow

Dr. Michael Stoller
Director of Collections & Research Services
NYU's Division of Libraries

Wednesday, October 19, 2011
5:30pm
20 Cooper Square, 5th Floor

From the tiny, little-used collections that accompanied the classical curriculum of early 19th century American colleges to the closed-stack libraries that first supported graduate research to the burgeoning open-stack repositories of the Cold War era and the digital gateways of the 21st century, Dr. Michael Stoller (Director of Collections & Research Services, NYU’s Division of Libraries) discusses the ways that academic libraries have grown and evolved to meet the changing needs of this country’s research universities. Stoller took his PhD in medieval history at Columbia University and has written extensively about the importance of collaboration between scholars and librarians in shaping the library of the 21st century.

RSVPs are required. To reserve your place, please visit:
http://bitly.com/michael_stoller

A reception will follow. This event is free and open to the public.

Linked Open Data at NYPL Labs

I'm just back from a brown bag session on linked open data that was sponsored by NYPL Labs (which is "an experimental unit at the Library working at the intersection of collections, technology and the digital humanities"). The crowd more than filled the room and included, in addition to our contingent of four from NYU, folks from Columbia, Fordham, and CUNY, as well as the International Center of Photography and the New York Times, to name a few. NYPL's brand-new president even attended! Clearly, linked open data is a topic of interest. The presenter, Jon Voss of Historypin, made good on the program's promise to be a basic overview, and he didn't overwhelm us with too much content to absorb over lunch on a blisteringly hot summer day. He included several slides at strategic moments that listed the key 3 or 5 points (the 5 were actually Tim Berners-Lee's 5 stars) that he wanted us to take away from the presentation. Voss also mentioned a book that he credited with changing the way he viewed things, Linked by Alberto-Laszlo Barabasi.

report from IASSIST 2011

I recently returned from the IASSIST Conference in Vancouver, BC. Luckily I was there when the Canucks were still winning and the sun was shining, and got back to NYC well before the riots.

IASSIST is the International Association for *Social Science* Information Services & Technology, and although the org has been around for many years, it’s recently been attracting more and more folks interested in e-science and data from disciplines that don’t fit nicely into the “social science” label (not to mention many professionals who are being asked to deal with ALL types of data). It’s an exciting time to be a part of IASSIST as interest in all things data continues to grow and we continue to contemplate our mission and scope. Another thing I like about IASSIST (the org and the conference) is that there are data librarians, but also plenty of others--archivists, programmers, LIS and other researchers, IT professionals, government employees, etc. Of course I love librarians, but it’s nice to hear what others are thinking about occasionally too. The group is still small enough for good networking and getting to know each other.

The narrative we’ve all been hearing for awhile now is still going strong: we need to get our researchers to contribute/share/preserve data...some of them are really into it, many are not (for various reasons)...we need to use a carrot and/or a stick to get more of them on board. Even in the relatively short time I’ve been involved with these communities, I see progress related to all parts of the story, this year particularly re: the NSF data management plan requirements (stick) and creating standards for consistent data citations (carrot).

I also really enjoyed the session on library workshops about data and am looking forward to seeing more (and hopefully to contributing more) sessions about the public services aspects of data librarianship in the future.

The closing plenary session was fantastic. Andrea Reimer is a member of the Vancouver City Council, which seemed an odd choice for a closing plenary speaker, but her session on Vancouver’s open government initiatives was an inspiring end to the conference. She was probably preaching to the choir a bit talking to the IASSIST crowd, but it was refreshing to hear these things from a politician. I was hoping I’d be able to post the video, but it isn’t available yet and would’ve been pretty long to watch anyway. A few key points:
- Citizens can’t be meaningfully involved in government decisions if they aren’t making decisions based on the same information that the politicians have. Plus, citizens/developers can usually make data much more useful faster and more efficiently than can a bureaucracy.
- A lot of info was already out there, but not in logical/usable formats and not well easily findable. It can’t be called “open access” if info is released in formats that are unusable. Releasing data buried in pdf documents is probably better than nothing, but under this initiative, Vancouver is making it standard for agencies to release their data in tabular format that can actually be digested, manipulated, and found. [aside: releasing born-digital material on paper is unacceptable. State of Alaska, take note.]
- Finally, end discrimination against open source software. Let government employees choose the tools they need to do their jobs.

-Samantha

Goddard Applications and Possible Session

The deadline for Goddard applications for fall semester 2011 is May 15, and the deadline for spring semester 2012 is Sept. 15. Information and the application can be found in the Faculty Handbook on the wiki. Please let us know if you think it would be helpful for the Mentoring Committee to host a session in which people who have had Goddard fellowships talk about their experience.

Association of Asian Studies 2011 Conference

This year the Association of Asian Studies celebrated its 70th anniversary by holding its annual conference as close to Asia as possible—in Honolulu. It was a tough assignment, but attending that conference and the in-conjunction annual meetings of the Council on East Asian Libraries required me to spend a full week in Hawaii in late March-early April. Sadly, the panels and other events were largely overshadowed by the tragic occurrences in Japan, which affected both the conference, in terms of speaker and participant cancellations, and Hawaii generally, in terms of a significant drop in Japanese tourism. I was struck by the way the Japanese speakers who were able to attend the conference expressed their obviously deeply felt gratitude toward the United States for its assistance in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami. The topics of some programs were changed at the last minute to address the calamity. The “Network for Historical Materials,” which originated in the wake of the 1996 Kōbe Earthquake has posted some photographs and information about the damage to museums and other sites.

In the exhibit hall, I was happy to see that a book I co-translated was being heavily featured at the booth of the publisher, University of Minnesota Press. The title of the original work by Saitō Tamaki literally means “A Psychoanalysis of Beautiful Fighting Girls,” but the editors and translators ultimately chose the simpler Beautiful Fighting Girl as the English title of this somewhat eccentric, partly Lacanian treatment of otaku--obsessive fans of manga and anime--who focus particularly on the very young girl heroines who appear in those works.

Call For Papers: Public Services Quarterly

Copied from an email I received yesterday,

"Public Services Quarterly is now accepting manuscripts for a special issue: Next Generation Library Services, guest edited by Beth Blakesley, Washington State University, and Alex Merrill, Washington State University.

Over the past decade libraries have faced increasing pressure to provide more with less. Academic libraries have developed innovative programs to meet the challenge of continuing to provide the same level of service using different methods. Many of these programs have been implemented using new web technologies or social media platforms. Unfortunately, these new and novel methods are not created equal.

This special issue of Public Services Quarterly seeks papers reporting the success (or failure) of "Next Generation" library services in any type of library environment. These services are not limited to web applications or projects and can most certainly include all manner of analog or digital services that have proven (or not) to be effective. Case studies or "How we did it here" papers are welcome but the editors are looking for a solid underlying framework for discussing the methodologies used to prove or disprove why the service was or was not a success.

The submission deadline is June 1, 2011. Please send all submissions and questions to the guest editors at:

beth.blakesley@wsu.edu and merrilla@wsu.edu"

ALA Annual 2011

ALA has published the preliminary program for this year's annual conference in New Orleans, June 23-28.

Writing Groups

This article, published in the Chronicle in December, has a nice discussion of ways in which two people can support each other’s writing work.