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NEWS FROM THE FIELD

C&RL News, December 2007
Vol. 68, No. 11

by David Free

University of California launches Mark Twain Project Online
The University of California has released the beta version of Mark Twain Project Online (MTPO), a digital critical edition of the writings of Mark Twain. MTPO applies innovative technology to more than four decades of archival research by expert editors at the Mark Twain Project and provides access to reliable texts, accurate and exhaustive notes, and the most recently discovered letters and documents.

The site includes more than twenty-three hundred letters written between 1853 and 1880, including nearly 100 facsimiles of originals. Users will also be able to search for information about Mark Twain’s complete correspondence across his entire life. The site will eventually include more of the nearly ten thousand known letters, including many never-before published; electronic editions of many of Mark Twain’s most famous literary works; the most complete catalog of Mark Twain’s writings currently available; and, in 2010, Mark Twain’s Autobiography, never before published in its complete form.

“Mark Twain Project Online is an extraordinary resource for scholars, teachers, and ordinary readers. Materials that previously could be examined only by scholars fortunate enough to be able to visit the Mark Twain Project in The Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley will now be available worldwide to anyone with an interest in Mark Twain-and that’s a cause for celebration, “ said Shelley Fisher Fishkin, author of Lighting Out for the Territory: Reflections on Mark Twain and American Culture.

For more information about Mark Twain Project Online, including details on the creation of the project, visit www.marktwainproject.org.

Advanced Leadership Institute for Senior Academic Librarians
In response to alumni requests, ACRL and the Harvard Institutes for Higher Education are pleased to announce a follow-up seminar to the highly-successful Leadership Institute for Academic Librarians Institute offered each summer.
The Advanced Leadership Institute for Senior Academic Librarians will be held March 26-29, 2008 at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and will be co-sponsored by ACRL. The seminar is scheduled to be offered every other year. Application materials are online at www.ala.org/acrl/events.
This highly-interactive program enhances participants’ strategic leadership skills in order to position their libraries for future success. The seminar is designed for alumni of the Leadership Institute for Academic Librarians and other senior-level library leaders committed to advancing the library’s strategic agenda.
“For several years now, library leaders have expressed interest in returning to Harvard for a follow-up program that would build on their initial institute experience,” said Joe Zolner, Director of the Harvard Institutes for Higher Education. “I am delighted that we have again collaborated with ACRL to organize this advanced offering for alumni of the summer institute and other senior-level library leaders.”
Jim Honan, Educational Co-Chair of the Institute for Educational Management (IEM) and a long-standing faculty member in The Leadership Institute for Academic Librarians, will serve as Educational Chair of the new event. Additional faculty include Joe Zolner, Judith Block McLaughlin, Elise Bickford-Jorgens, Kristina Gunsalus, and Monica Higgins.
Key topics covered by the institute include:
Leading strategic change and decision making: Consider the perspectives, insights, and skills necessary to think strategically and lead effectively. Develop new thinking that incorporates key features of the competitive environment and your own internal assets in crafting thoughtful and comprehensive strategy.
External leadership: Develop a keener appreciation of the skills needed to manage important external relationships more effectively. Understand how to assess key constituencies, interest groups, and stakeholder relationships. Develop strategies to exercise more effective political leadership and forge more productive partnerships and strategic alliances.
Leading effective senior-level teams:Understand the intricacies of team dynamics and the skills required to lead collaborative, team-based processes more effectively. Appreciate how to develop a shared vision from a group of diverse constituencies and lead teams in productive and strategically-valuable ways.
Collaborating with senior leadership: Understand more clearly the expectations that senior university leaders have of the library and its leadership. Develop strategies to negotiate with these administrators in ways that advance both the library and the institution. Understand how to address library-specific needs and broader institutional interests in more comprehensive and strategic ways.
For further information or to submit your application, visit www.gse.harvard.edu/ppe or call 800-545-1849.

ICOLC responds to AAAS/ JSTOR split
The International Coalition of Library Consortia (ICOLC) issued a statement in late October 2007 strongly objecting to the decision by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) to discontinue its participation in JSTOR, including withholding future issues of its premier publication, Science, from the JSTOR archive and prohibiting JSTOR from making issues of Science currently held in the archive available to new JSTOR participants. The decision by AAAS was reported in the September 2007 issue of C&RL News.

The ICOLC statement asserts that Science is an outstanding source of high-quality, vetted information covering all areas of science, the inclusion of which enhances the value, breadth, and quality of the JSTOR archive, and that the decision to discontinue participation in JSTOR is in conflict with AAAS’ mission, as a non-profit, membership-based organization, of advancing science and serving society.

Over 170 groups, including the California Digital Library, the U.K based Society of College, National and University Libraries, and SOLINET have adopted the statement, which urges AAAS to reconsider its decision.

The full statement is available online at www.library.yale.edu/consortia/ICOLC-AAAS-JSTOR-resolution.doc.

University at Buffalo unveils maps database
Looking for New York State geographic information? The NYS Gazetteer and GeoData Collection, developed by The University at Buffalo (UB) Libraries, facilitates searching and locating 38,000 places, features, and other geographic information within New York State. The resource links U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) digital maps archived at the UB Libraries with the New York State portion of the “Geographic Names Information System” (GNIS), a Federal repository of official domestic geographic names maintained by the USGS.

The database is searchable by geographic names, feature type, county map, USGS quadrangle, or by a merger of multiple categories. Search results provide links to the appropriate feature in Google Maps. The digital maps can be printed for class or field work or imported into Geographic Information System (GIS) applications.
“Topographic maps are wonderful tools that provide detailed information for natural and cultural features on the ground, such as slopes, valleys, rivers, roads, and even vegetation cover. Whether it is a K-12 teacher looking for geography class maps, a hiker looking to print a field map, or a GIS technician searching for a digital image to import into a GIS application, this database services a wide variety of needs,”said database developer Michele Shular.

The NYS Gazetteer and GeoData Collection is freely available to the public on the UB Libraries Web site at: http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/e-resources/nysgeodata.html.

New ACRL Scholarly Communication podcast
Interested in the future of scholarly communication? A new ACRL Podcast featuring ACRL Scholarly Communications Committee co-chairs John Ober, Director of the Office of Scholarly Communication at the University of California, and Joyce Ogburn, University Librarian at the University of Utah focuses on the ACRL white paper “Establishing a Research Agenda for Scholarly Communication: A Call for Community Engagement.”
Ober and Ogburn discuss how this report helps delineate the stake of academic librarians and their potential role in the future of scholarly communication, and how librarians can leverage the report to jump-start conversations on their own campuses.
While the report begins to outline a research agenda, identifying eight themes with research possibilities for each, public comment is critical to truly create a community research agenda. ACRL invites you to share your thoughts on the report online.
The white paper is available at www.acrl.ala.org/scresearchagenda, and the podcast at blogs.ala.org/acrlpodcast.php.

ARL selects 2007–09 diversity scholars
The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) Diversity Initiatives Working Group has selected 24 MLS students from underrepresented groups to participate in the 2007–09 Initiative to Recruit a Diverse Workforce.
The 2007–09 Diversity Scholars are:
• Jason K. Alston, North Carolina Central University
• Jordan C. Andrade, Florida State University*
• RaShauna N. Brannon, North Carolina Central University
• Lisa Chow, Pratt Institute*
• Michael S. Creedon, Syracuse University*
• Freeman D. Culver III, University of Alabama
• Natalie de Roock, University of Arizona
• George E. Gottschalk, University of Oklahoma
• Janice M. Gould, University of Arizona
• Yi Jin, University of California, Los Angeles*
• Marcellaus A. Joiner, North Carolina Central University
• Loretta Lewis, Louisiana State University*
• Lin Li, University of Toronto*
• Mari Nakahara, Catholic University of America*
• Ja’Nean Palacios, San Jose State University
• Daryl Payton, North Carolina Central University*
• Angel L. Roman, Pratt Institute
• Kristal E. Sergent, University of Oklahoma
• Manju Tanwar, University of South Carolina*
• Christina K. Thach, Indiana University
• Lianne V. Valerio, University of Texas at Austin
• Dawn M. Waller, Drexel University
• Steven A. Ward, Catholic University of America*
• Jiguang Zheng, University of Alberta*
* funded under IMLS grant to attract science majors

The Initiative to Recruit a Diverse Workforce offers leadership development and a stipend of up to $10,000 over two years to MLS students from underrepresented groups who are interested in careers in research libraries. The initiative is funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and by voluntary contributions from 52 ARL member libraries. This funding reflects a commitment to create a diverse research library community that will better meet the new challenges of global competition and changing demographics. The Initiative to Recruit a Diverse Workforce is located on the Web at www.arl.org/diversity/init/.

Scribe to advance digitization at UNC Library
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) Library and the Internet Archive recently entered an agreement to bring the first digital “Scribe” to the Southeast. “Scribe,” a high-speed scanner and software application developed by the Internet Archive, will speed the conversion of books to digital format and encourage experimentation with the free delivery of digitized material via the Internet.

UNC will initially use “Scribe” to digitize large and heavily consulted collections. Under review for the pilot phase are approximately 22,000 Spanish-language dramas from the 18th through the early-20th centuries; 1,200 American and British travel accounts published between 1782 and 1920; a century of back issues of UNC’s yearbook, “Yackety Yack”; and thousands of ephemeral items such as board minutes and church bulletins that document the lives of North Carolinians since the middle of the 18th century.

According to Robert Miller, director of books at the Internet Archive, approximately fifty “Scribe” machines are currently deployed around the country, capable of digitizing more than 300,000 books per year. All materials scanned in partnership with the Internet Archive are freely available on the Web.
A public rollout of the Scribe and a formal ribbon cutting for UNC’s expanded digital library are planned for early in 2008. Visit www.lib.unc.edu/digitalprojects.html for more information on the UNC Library digital collections.

I can't live without . . . Maybe people think we in academia have a lot of free time, or they depend on our skill as librarians. In either case, they forward an awful lot of urban-legend-type e-mail to us, looking for comment or confirmation. Rather than research each and every piece of such flotsam, I refer people to the appropriate part of Snopes.com, where the estimable Barbara and David Mikkelson have not only answered the tough questions, but also provide a bibliography of sources in support. So the next time someone asks you about a weird “fact,” a strange rumor, a wild statistic, or a story that seems too good to be true, check one of the Snopes categories, or click on “What’s New.”—Peter J. Salber, Long Island University - Brooklyn Library

Snopes.com
www.snopes.com

New EBSCOhost resources
EBSCO Publishing has added two new databases to its popular EBSCOhost collection. The Christian Periodical Index (CPI), published by the Association of Christian Librarians, provides access to predominantly English language articles and reviews from an evangelical perspective. CPI coverage represents the major doctrinal positions within evangelical Christianity, and includes more than 130 publications in the disciplines of science, literature, medicine, music, philosophy, history, sociology, and education that include a Christian worldview.

The second new resource, FTSA - Food Science and Technology Abstracts, is the world’s leading database of information on food science, food technology and nutrition. The database includes articles relating to every aspect of the food chain, from a wide variety of international sources, and covers all the major food commodities, biotechnology and microbiology, as well as food safety, additives, nutrition, packaging and pet foods. FSTA features material from over 4,600 serial publications published in 40 languages.

Breaking ground at UMKC
The University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) held a ceremonial groundbreaking for the expansion and renovation of the Miller Nichols Library Oct. 31, 2007. UMKC Chancellor Guy Bailey, philanthropist Jeanette Nichols, and other civic leaders were among the speakers.

Miller Nichols Library serves as the comprehensive public research library for the Kansas City metropolitan area. Upon opening in 1969, the library was designed to serve a student population of 6,000. The renovated library will serve 14,000 UMKC students, in addition to community users, and will provide space for student services, research, and sustained growth of library collections.

The expansion and renovation will be completed in three phases and will result in approximately 170,000 renovated square feet and 65,000 new square feet of classroom and learning space.

ACRL is a division of the American Library Association