Planet DHASS

SEASR: Meandre 1.4.7 Released

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 23:04:12 +0000

Meandre 1.4.7 was released today, November 3, 2009. This is the last and most stable release in the 1.4 series before we move onto big changes for the 1.5 series. Version 1.4.7 has a few new features and numerous bug fixes and usability improvements.

As usual, the Download page now points to this stable release:

http://seasr.org/meandre/download/

The raw artifacts are available at the SEASR repository:

http://repository.seasr.org/Meandre/Releases/1.4/1.4.7/

Visible changes since 1.4.5 (Version 1.4.6 was an internal release):

Meandre server can now load flows from the network and then be restarted and run offline.

Improvements to the Meandre Administrative Interface for user accounts.

Allow specification of the port when running a flow from the ZigZag console.

Performance improvement on component installation by using MD5 checksums to check whether a particular resource already exist on the meandre server.

When regenerating, downloading jar files is skipped if they already exist on the meandre server.

Bug fixes.

Grand Text Auto: Reimagineering

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 22:25:49 +0000

Luis and Gay Tony in GTA IV: Ballad of Gay Tony

Last week, the second and final installment of the Episodes of Liberty City downloadable content for Grand Theft Auto IV, The Ballad of Gay Tony, was released. Unlike the more sullen story of Nico Bellic, clawing his way up from nothing, Gay Tony’s Luis begins with a crisp suit, good job, plenty of cash and all sorts of expensive items to wreak havoc throughout Liberty City. What marks out GTA IV’s DLC from a simple mission pack or extra campaign is that it offers the chance to experience Liberty City from a new perspective, reimagining the gameplay, and thus, the game, in the process.

This is something I heartily commend.

Casting our minds back through the mysts of tyme, in ye olden days, expansion packs for PC games were popular stop-gaps between development cycles. Often, the best packs would invite a new experience, for better or worse. Blizzard’s Frozen Throne expansion for Warcraft III included some fairly awful squad-based levels, eschewing the base management aspect the original. However, the attempt was there, the price of development was low, and the cost to the consumer was reduced too. Win-win. Now that DLC has become entwined in the fate of games on the current generation of consoles, we see this trend returning.

Burnout Paradise: Big Surf Island

While GTA IV asks players to see the city through the eyes of a new protagonist, with new motivations and financial status (equaling new mission, weapons and cars, gameplay-wise), Burnout Paradise’s expansion, Big Surf Island is an unashamed distillation of the core game. Criterion took all the aspects that made the original fun: huge jumps, secret areas, inventing Tony Hawk-esque routes to create the most exhilarating run, and shrunk it down into a tiny area, converting the game from a weak beer to a hard shot of tequila. It’s a wonderful addition to the game. In fact, the only problem is that the island is too much fun. Driving between both areas, linked from a bridge, is now a jarring experience: the jumps, twists and turns of the new island give way to open, flat, straight, roads of the original. Roads that once seemed exciting and fast are now tedious and one-dimensional.

The difference between these expansions and those that the PC cultivated is that while we need to build new content, we can still situate the player in the same environment that they know, playing off their familiarity with surprise and nostalgia. The re-imagining of these games shows just how many play-styles modern games are capable of supporting, if only the developers had the time to do so. There are strong parallels with MMOs here, visiting the old friend of Azeroth after six months away can reveal new secrets and functionality, delighting players for years on end. Revisitating promotes an ownership of virtual worlds that were hitherto transient places, existing for a single game, for a single purpose.

I hope this signals a new style of development, building on solid foundations to support ever more complex and ever more exciting gameplay, refining original ideas over time, rather than creating monolithic pieces that remain the same forever. The intent is the same as the (arguably failed) episodic gaming movement of a few years ago, but the execution different.

And now, back to Gay Tony. I have some skyscrapers to base jump off.

Center for History and New Media: George Mason and CHNM to Commemorate the 20th Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall with Support from the German Embassy

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 20:43:15 +0000

The Berlin Wall came down on November 9, 1989, signaling the end of the Cold War and the beginning of a new era in transatlantic relations and European unity. November 9, 2009 celebrates 20 years since the Berlin Wall was torn down. Long a symbol of isolation and contention, the Berlin Wall now symbolizes hope, change and unity. Students at more than 25 US universities will celebrate the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall by organizing Campus Weeks with financial and organizational support from the German Embassy in Washington DC .

This fall, George Mason University and CHNM will join in the German Embassy’s campaign, Freedom Without Walls, a crosscultural celebration of the unification of East Germany and West Germany, and the possibility for peaceful change throughout the world. CHNM is hosting the George Mason website for Freedom Without Walls, which will feature updates on project news, Campus Week events, and new content.

The Campus Weeks are a component of Germany ’s Freedom Without Walls campaign, an effort to reach out to the generation that was born around the time the wall came down.

Ambassador Scharioth explained that reaching today’s university students is critical if the memory and the inspiration of the fall of the wall is to be preserved. “Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the vestiges of the wall remind us that freedom is precious,” he said. “We are proud to support a new generation of future leaders in their effort to discover and to share what the fall of the wall means to them,” he continued.

The Freedom Without Walls Campus Weeks will include public speaking competitions and an art competition involving replicas of the Berlin Wall to be located across the country.

The German Embassy has created a website with information about the historic anniversary at www.Germany.info/withoutwalls, as well as a Freedom Without Walls page on Facebook. The Germany.info website contains comprehensive information about the history of Germany’s division and reunification, and it will document the Campus Weeks using online video and photos.

The Freedom Without Walls campaign is generously supported by Air Berlin and by the Max Kade Foundation, Inc.

The Goethe-Institut USA and the Wende Museum in Los Angeles provide support in kind for the German Embassy’s Freedom Without Walls campaign.

Colleges and Universities Participating in Freedom Without Walls Campus Weeks 2009

Amherst College

Boston College

Bowdoin College

Brown University

California State University Long Beach

Canisius College , Buffalo

Chapman University , LA

University of Cincinnati

Columbia University

Cornell University

Duke University

University of Florida

University of South Florida

George Mason University

Georgetown University

Johns Hopkins University

University of Massachusetts – Amherst

University of Michigan

Middlebury College

University of Missouri-St. Louis

University of Oregon

Rice University

University of St. Thomas

UCLA – to be confirmed

Vanderbilt University

University of Virginia

Wartburg College

Washington University

Westminster College

HASTAC blogs: Durham superintendent to leave, work for Obama administration

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 16:53:56 +0000

Durham Public Schools superintendent Carl E. Harris will leave the school system at the end of the calendar year in order to work for the U.S. Department of Education, according to a news release sent this morning.

Harris has accepted a position as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Education for Policy and Strategic Initiatives with the federal agency.

HASTAC blogs: Sorenson Giving the Competition a Squeeze

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 14:04:36 +0000

If you are a video nut like me and have done any type of video post-production from your home Mac or PC, then you probably know how useful and powerful a tool Sorenson Squeeze can be. For anyone out there not familiar, Squeeze is one of the best one-stop-shop encoding programs available for digital video. Not only is Squeeze compatible with a variety of different codecs, but I have found it to work as seamlessly on a PC as it does a Mac, a function that not many other programs can claim.

You can understand my elation, then, when I heard that Sorenson was releasing Squeeze 6, the latest and greatest in streamlined video encoding.

HASTAC blogs: Tecno-Tzotzil students: two classrooms, two worlds

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 05:00:00 +0000

Second visit to the Nashoox and Tilil communities: Fifth week of classes.

In the community of Nashoox we found that the electricity had already been installed on the half of a classroom corresponding to the third through sixth grades.&n

2009

HASTAC blogs: Explore WildLab

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 05:00:00 +0000

Observation is the first step towards scientific discovery. With the WildLab iPhone application and associated inquiry-based curriculum, students learn the basics of scientific fieldwork, while using other STEM-related skills. Through observations, questions, and analysis, students come to know t

WildLab

HASTAC blogs: Building a Personal Intelligence Dashboard by Howard Rheingold

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 04:15:49 +0000

The inimitable Howard Rheingold has just made a terrific video on How To Build a Personal Intelligence Dashboard, which shows how to organize your dashboard in a way that streamlines, aids, abets, and in all ways supports your attentions and, equally important, your distractions. As always with Howard's video, extremely helpful and clear. Check it out!

http://blip.tv/file/2799206

Found History: Briefly Noted for November 2, 2009

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 03:30:05 +0000

Amazon Editors’ Picks for 2009 — Amazon.com has released its editors’ picks for the 100 best books of 2009. The “nearly unanimous choice” for the best book of the year is Let the Great World Spin, by Colum McCann, which I haven’t read yet. But I can vouch for #7, Steig Larsson’s The Girl Who Played With Fire, the sequel to his The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, both of which are excellent. In general, if you haven’t read a Swedish murder mystery before, you don’t know what you’re missing.

E-Books More Popular than Games Among iPhone App Developers — Twenty percent of new applications in Apple’s iTunes App Store are books, according to a survey summarized at ReadWriteWeb. That compares to thirteen percent for games. I guess app developers disagree with Steve Jobs’ 2008 assessment that reading is dead or his more recent contention that the iPod Touch is a gaming platform.

More from ArchivesNext on NARA’s Digitization Partnerships — ArchivesNext has some excellent commentary—indeed, original reporting—on the National Archives and Records Administration’s digital partnership agreements, such as the ones it has entered into with Footnote.com. Written partially in response to some poorly thought out comments here at Found History, ArchivesNext provides (as usual) a well considered, well balanced discussion of the issues at play.

Top Ten Disruptive Technologies — Although it’s 18 months old, Gartner’s Top Ten Disruptive Technologies for 2008 to 2012 stands another look. Most of the entries are familiar and sound about right, but I’ll have to read up on a few, including “fabric computing” and “contextual computing.”

Net Neutrality: Pro and Con — Two Op-Eds in The Wall Street Journal present two sides in the debate over the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC’s) proposed net neutrality guidelines and some very different ideas about the meanings of words like “neutral,” “fair,” and “open.” Supportive of the FCC’s proposals are Mitchell Baker and John Lilly of Mozilla. Opposed are U.S. Senators Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Jim Demint (R-South Carolina). Worth reading both sides.

DOD <3 Open Source — The United States Department of Defense has put open source software on an equal footing with proprietary software, reports ReadWriteWeb. That’s a big deal, but DOD isn’t first U.S. government agency to make this move. IMLS and NEH, for example, started favoring open source software in their grant making guidelines a couple years ago, which puts the digital humanities and cultural heritage biz way ahead of the game.

The End of Student .edu Email — Citing a study by Educause, The Chronicle of Higher Education’s Wired Campus blog reports that as many as 25% of institutions of higher education are considering eliminating support for student email addresses.

DigitalKoans (Charles Bailey): Bills Introduced in House and Senate to Block FCC Net Neutrality Regulations

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 03:05:47 +0000

Senator John McCain has introduced the "The Internet Freedom Act of 2009" in the U.S. Senate and Rep. Marsha Blackburn has introduced the "Real Stimulus Act of 2009" in the U.S. House of Representatives. Both bills are aimed at preventing the FCC from imposing net neutrality regulations, saying: "The Federal Communications Commission shall not propose, promulgate, or issue any regulations regarding the Internet or IP-enabled services."

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DigitalKoans (Charles Bailey): Nine Software Design/Development/Usability Jobs at the VIVOweb Project at Cornell

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 03:04:36 +0000

The VIVOweb Project based in Cornell's Mann Library is recruiting nine software design/development/usability specialists.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

The VIVOweb Project is a two-year $12 million project funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to build a national network of distributed Resource Description Framework (RDF) databases facilitating discovery of scientists and their research and encouraging interdisciplinary collaboration and scientific exchange. The VIVO (http://vivo.cornell.edu) experts and resources network has been under development in Mann Library at Cornell since 2003 and is currently in use at Cornell and at the University of Florida. The latter is the lead institution in this multi-institution project.

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DigitalKoans (Charles Bailey): "Internet Archive Dishes up BookServer as Digital Books Market Heats Up"

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 03:03:56 +0000

In "Internet Archive Dishes up BookServer as Digital Books Market Heats Up," Nancy Herther discusses the recent BookServer announcement and its implications.

Here's an excerpt:

Using an open architecture and open ebook formats, Kahle and his team intend to see that ebooks are available—for free or a fee—that will work on any device—whether a laptop, PC, smartphone, game console, or dedicated ebook reader. While it is still in development and probably years from completion, the BookServer project is intended to allow users to search book indexes across the web—whether it be on publishers' sites, libraries, bookstores, universities, or other sources—to identify content, compare vendor offerings, and easily download titles.

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DigitalKoans (Charles Bailey): UK Intellectual Property Office: © The Way Ahead: A Strategy for Copyright in the Digital Age

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 03:02:16 +0000

The UK Intellectual Property Office has released © The Way Ahead: A Strategy for Copyright in the Digital Age.

Here's an excerpt:

Based on the findings, the Government's reported intentions are:

for authors of copyright works; to support fair treatment through new model contracts and clauses and fair returns for use of their work by improving education about and enforcement of rights;

for rights holders; to help secure a viable future by encouraging the development of new business models, modernising the licensing process and maintaining support for education about and enforcement of rights;

for consumers; to allow them to benefit from the digital age by seeking to legitimise noncommercial use of legitimately-purchased copyright works and improving access to 'orphan works' such as out-of-print books;

for educators and researchers; to support them by improving access to works, resolving issues around copyright and contract and ensuring exceptions to copyright are right for the digital age; and

for businesses and other users; to work towards a simpler copyright system by, improving the copyright licensing process and encouraging the development of new business models.

This means:

UK action to improve access to orphan works, enable extended collective licensing, encourage the development of model contracts and clauses, and tackle P2P file-sharing; and

A willingness on the Government's part to consider European action that provides commonsense rules for private, non-commercial use of copyright material that will give consumers much more freedom to do what they want (such as creating mash-ups) and make clear what they cannot do.

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DigitalKoans (Charles Bailey): Making the Case for European Research Libraries: LIBER Strategic Plan 2009-2012

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 03:01:20 +0000

The Ligue des Bibliothèques Européennes de Recherche (LIBER) has released Making the Case for European Research Libraries: LIBER Strategic Plan 2009-2012.

Here's an excerpt:

In 2009-2012 LIBER will give priority to the following areas:

Scholarly communication

Digitisation and resource discovery

Heritage collections and preservation

Organisation and human resources

LIBER Services

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HASTAC blogs: Virtual communities for physical fitness

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 02:08:47 +0000

Our increasingly techno-savvy and sophisticated society is taking the problem of obesity and giving it the technological solution - through the use of virtual communities in physical fitness.

MITH: Call for Applications: MITH’s Winnemore Digital Humanities Dissertation Fellowship

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 01:27:33 +0000

Applications for MITH’s Spring 2010 Winnemore Digital Humanities Dissertation Fellowship are now being accepted.

Intended for students whose dissertations engage the intersections between new media and the traditional concerns of the Arts and Humanities, the Winnemore Fellowship will provide a stipend of $9,570, plus full benefits and tuition remission up to five credits.

Nominees will be evaluated on three main criteria: (1) The potential contribution of the dissertation to the Digital Humanities; (2) The quality of the student’s work; (3) The likelihood of the student successfully completing the dissertation.

Applicants will be asked to submit an application form; a 500-1000 word abstract written for a general audience; a statement of work completed to date, work remaining, and expected completion date; a curriculum vitae; and two letters of recommendation, one of which must be from the student’s dissertation director. The application form can be found here: http://mith.umd.edu/research/WinnemoreApp2010.pdf

Students who wish to apply for the fellowship should submit a copy of the application form and the required attachments to Neil Fraistat, Director of MITH, McKeldin Library B0131, Campus.

Students who have funding that is related to their dissertation research or another substantial fellowship should not apply.

Applications for Spring 2009 are due at MITH by noon, Monday, December 7, 2009. The recipient will be announced in mid-December 2009.

Please address any questions to Neil Fraistat, Director of MITH (fraistat at umd dot edu).

HASTAC blogs: Sixth-graders showcase DIGW games at state capitol

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 20:37:01 +0000

Three sixth graders from Williams Elementary in Flint presented their DIGW games in Lansing, Michigan on Oct. 28, at the Michigan Association for Computer Users in Learning student technology showcase. They did a terrific job of explaining DevInfo GameWorks and the Millenium Development Goals to

DevInfo GameWorks: Changing the World One Game at a Time

eDream - Emerging Digital Research and Education in Arts Media Institute: Sever Tipei / Illinois Composers’ Forum

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:30:20 +0000

Yesterday afternoon, Professor of Music Sever Tipei presented at the Illinois Composers' Forum on recent projects and research. Sever offered a demonstration of SoundMaker--an additive sound synthesis engine with a web-based interface--which readers can explore at http://aurel.music.uiuc.edu:81/SoundMakerWeb/Login (requires that users establish a free account). The program, written in C++, enables composers ...

eDream - Emerging Digital Research and Education in Arts Media Institute: eDream Affiliate IUPUI to Co-Host Intermedia Festival

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:30:20 +0000

Intermedia Festival will be co-produced by eDream's affiliate program at IUPUI. The Festival will be held right in our backyard, too -- just 2 hours east, in Indianapolis, this coming Spring, from April 23-25, 2010. The Festival will focus on "emerging artistic trends in telematic and media arts," in which telematic ...

eDream - Emerging Digital Research and Education in Arts Media Institute: Siebel Scholars at eDream

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:30:20 +0000

Two of Guy Garnett's graduate students have been named Siebel Scholars, Class of 2010: Brett Jones and Rajinder Sodhi. This major honor was established by the Siebel Foundation "in 2000 to recognize the most talented students at the world's leading graduate schools of bioengineering, business, and computer science." Siebel Scholars ...

eDream - Emerging Digital Research and Education in Arts Media Institute: Astral Convertible Blog

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:30:20 +0000

On October 2nd, John Toenjes debuted an Astral Convertible blog (see eDream's Projects page for more details), which will follow his and our collaborators' progress in pre-production work for the restaging of this contemporary American dance masterpiece. The blog provides special insight into the complex technical challenges such an arts-technology ...

eDream - Emerging Digital Research and Education in Arts Media Institute: Therese Tierney

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:30:20 +0000

We eDreamers were delighted to meet so many interesting and talented colleagues at the recent Illinois Informatics Institute's Open House. Among them was Therese Tierney, a professor who has just joined the School of Architecture and whose work and interests readily evoke the brave new arts-technology space in which ...

eDream - Emerging Digital Research and Education in Arts Media Institute: Good News for the Informatics Doctorate in Art and Culture

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:30:20 +0000

eDream is helping to facilitate the approval of a doctorate that will concentrate on digital arts media, which will be administered by the Illinois Informatics Institute and granted by the Graduate College. The degree, which is bundled with other areas of informatics, was approved by the Education Policy Committee of ...

eDream - Emerging Digital Research and Education in Arts Media Institute

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:30:20 +0000

The Illinois Emerging Digital Research and Education in Arts Media Institute— is dedicated to promoting arts that are conceived, created, and conveyed through digital technologies.

HASTAC blogs: What is the killer app for political science?

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 15:34:49 +0000

Prompted by Sen. Coburn's recent condemnation of political science as a money pit, I've been thinking more about the contributions of political science (and social science generally). I'm certainly not alone. The value of social science is a source of frequent soul searching by practitioners, and Sen Coburn's grandstanding has brought it to the attention of a national audience. Other commentators have provided nice summaries of political science accomplishments, so I won't rehash them here.

Instead, I purpose a constructive way to better political science, one that should resonate with others on this board: find the killer app for political science.

HASTAC blogs: HASTAC 2010: Grand Challenges and Global Innovations Conference

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:43:57 +0000

HASTAC is delighted to announce the HASTAC 2010: Grand Challenges and Global Innovations Conference. Held April 15-17, 2010 and hosted by the Institute for Computing in Humanities, Arts, and Social Science at the University of Illinois, HASTAC 2010: Grand Challenges and Global Innovations will be a free, entirely virtual event held in a multiplicity of digital spaces instigated from sites across the globe.

Digital Arts & Humanities, King's College: Virtual Environments for Research in Archaeology: Third Winter Workshop

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 12:39:36 +0000

Start: 02/12/2009 - 10:00 End: 02/12/2009 - 16:30 Timezone: Europe/London Third VERA Winter Workshop – Wednesday 2nd December 2009 "Digital field recording and publication in archaeology" The VERA project invites you to a workshop entitled "Digital field recording and publication in archaeology" to be held in the Archaeology Department of the University of Reading on Wednesday 2nd December 2009. [read more...] Mapping the Past

Open Access News: November SOAN

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Suber) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 12:10:23 +0000

I just mailed the November issue of the SPARC Open Access Newsletter. This issue takes a close look at a few threads in the argument that knowledge is and ought to be a public good. The roundup section briefly notes 223 OA developments from October.

Digital Arts & Humanities, King's College: Post Doctoral Research Fellow at Emory University Libraries

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 09:41:36 +0000

Emory University Libraries invites applications for a 12-month postdoctoral Research Fellow to work on a digital scholarship planning grant funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. This project will pursue the further development of Emory's Digital Scholarship Commons (DiSC) and explore the evolving structural role of research libraries in the digital scholarship domain. A new organizational model, as envisioned by Emory through DiSC, will address the four foci of digital scholarship: scholarly communications, research resources, pedagogy, and ethics. [read more...]

DigitalKoans (Charles Bailey): "Why Plaintiffs Should Have to Prove Irreparable Harm in Copyright Preliminary Injunction Cases"

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 03:05:04 +0000

Pamela Samuelson and Krzysztof Bebenek have self-archived "Why Plaintiffs Should Have to Prove Irreparable Harm in Copyright Preliminary Injunction Cases" in SSRN.

Here's an excerpt:

It has become lamentably common for courts to issue preliminary injunctions in copyright cases once rights holders have shown a reasonable likelihood of success on the merits without going on to require them to prove that they will suffer irreparable harm unless the injunction issues. Harm is too often presumed to be irreparable if plaintiffs have made out a prima facie case of infringement. This presumption cannot be squared with traditional principles of equity, as interpreted in numerous Supreme Court decisions, particularly eBay, Inc. v. MercExchange LLC, 547 U.S. 388 (2006).

While a presumption of irreparable harm is inappropriate in all copyright cases, it is particularly troublesome in cases involving transformative uses of existing works, such as parodies and remixes and mashups, because free expression and free speech interests of creative users are at stake and transformative uses cases often raise plausible non-infringement defenses. Indeed, if any presumption about harm is appropriate in transformative use cases, it should probably run in favor of irreparability of harm to the defendants' free expression and speech interests under First Amendment case law which treats preliminary injunctions as presumptively unconstitutional prior restraints on speech.

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DigitalKoans (Charles Bailey): Digital Archivist at Stanford University

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 03:04:46 +0000

The Stanford University Libraries are recruiting a Digital Archivist.

Here's an excerpt from the ad (Job ID: 36243):

Reporting to the Principal Manuscripts Processing Librarian, the Digital Archivist will help define and apply the methodology and standards of traditional archival best practice to born-digital collections. This work will be done as part of a grant project, Born Digital Collections: An Inter-Institutional Model for Stewardship (AIMS), funded by the Mellon Foundation and led by the University of Virginia.

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DigitalKoans (Charles Bailey): OCLC to Offer Free OAIster-Only Database View in 2010 to Complement Integrated WorldCat Access

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 03:03:32 +0000

The transfer of the OAIster database to OCLC's WorldCat is now complete, and OCLC will offer a free OAIster-only database view in 2010 to complement integrated WorldCat Access.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The University of Michigan and OCLC today announced that they have successfully transitioned the OAIster database to OCLC to ensure continued public access to open-archive collections, and to expand the visibility of these collections to millions of information seekers through OCLC services.

OAIster records are now fully accessible through WorldCat.org, and will be included in WorldCat.org search results along with records from thousands of libraries worldwide that add their holdings to WorldCat. OCLC plans to release a freely accessible, discrete view of the OAIster records in January 2010 through a URL specific to OAIster. OAIster records will also continue to be available on the OCLC FirstSearch service to Base Package subscribers, providing another valuable access point for this rich database and a complement to other FirstSearch databases. OCLC will continue to develop and enhance access to open archive content.

"Adding records for open archive collections is a natural complement to WorldCat and will drive discovery and access of these collections for a broader community of scholars," said Chip Nilges, OCLC Vice President, Business Development. "OCLC is committed to building on the success of OAIster by identifying open archive collections of interest to researchers and libraries, and ensuring that open archive collections will be freely discoverable and accessible to information seekers worldwide."

"Integration of OAIster inside WorldCat.org is the result of many years of looking for a better home for OAIster, where its resources can be searched alongside other valuable, scholarly resources," said Kat Hagedorn, OAIster/Metadata Harvesting Librarian at the University of Michigan. "I am eagerly looking forward to its increased usefulness in the world of search and discovery."

OAIster is a union catalog of digital resources hosted at the University of Michigan since 2002. Launched with grant support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, OAIster was developed to test the feasibility of building a portal to open archive collections using the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH). OAIster has grown to become one of the world's largest aggregations of records pointing to open archive collections with more than 23 million records contributed by over 1,100 organizations worldwide.

"The University of Michigan approached OCLC about managing future operations for the OAIster project to ensure its long-term viability," said John Wilkin, Associate University Librarian, University of Michigan Library, when the partnership was announced earlier this year. "OCLC plays a pivotal role in the business of metadata creation and distribution. Situating OAIster with OCLC helps to create an increasingly comprehensive discovery resource for users."

OCLC plans to release a freely accessible, discrete view of the OAIster database in 2010 that will be updated regularly. This will allow WorldCat.org searchers to view only items harvested through OAIster.

"OCLC has been very responsive to issues and needs brought up by the OAI community," said Ms. Hagedorn. "The creation of a free, separately accessible view of OAIster within OCLC is an example of their recognition of the value of OAIster in the world of metadata management."

Now that all OAIster records are accessible through WorldCat.org, the oaister.org Web site has been redirected to a new OAIster Web site at OCLC. For more information, visit the new OAIster Web site.

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DigitalKoans (Charles Bailey): "Removing All Restrictions: Cornell's New Policy on Use of Public Domain Reproductions"

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 03:02:18 +0000

Peter Hirtle, Cornell University Library's Senior Policy Advisor, is interviewed in "Removing All Restrictions: Cornell's New Policy on Use of Public Domain Reproductions," which has been published in the latest issue of Research Library Issues.

Here's an excerpt:

Restrictions on the use of public domain work, sometimes labeled "copyfraud," are generating increasing criticism from the scholarly community. With significant collections of public domain materials in their collections, research libraries are faced with the question of what restrictions, if any, to place on those who seek to scan or otherwise reproduce these resources with the intention of publication.

Cornell University Library has responded by adopting new permissions guidelines that open access by no longer requiring users to seek permission to publish public domain items duplicated from its collections. Users planning to scan and publish public domain material are still expected to determine that works are in the public domain where they live (since public domain determinations can vary internationally). Users must also respect noncopyright rights, such as the rights of privacy, publicity, and trademark. The Library will continue to charge service fees associated with the reproduction of analog material or the provision of versions of files different than what is freely available on the Web. The new guidelines are found at http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/guidelines.html.

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DigitalKoans (Charles Bailey): Internet Domain Names to Contain Non-Latin Characters

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 03:01:19 +0000

ICANN has appoved the use of non-Latin characters in Internet domain names.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The first Internet addresses containing non-Latin characters from start to finish will soon be online thanks to today's approval of the new Internationalized Domain Name Fast Track Process by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers board.

"The coming introduction of non-Latin characters represents the biggest technical change to the Internet since it was created four decades ago," said ICANN chairman Peter Dengate Thrush. "Right now Internet address endings are limited to Latin characters—A to Z. But the Fast Track Process is the first step in bringing the 100,000 characters of the languages of the world online for domain names."

ICANN's Fast Track Process launches on 16 November 2009. It will allow nations and territories to apply for Internet extensions reflecting their name—and made up of characters from their national language. If the applications meet criteria that includes government and community support and a stability evaluation, the applicants will be approved to start accepting registrations.

"This is only the first step, but it is an incredibly big one and an historic move toward the internationalization of the Internet," said Rod Beckstrom, ICANN's President and CEO. "The first countries that participate will not only be providing valuable information of the operation of IDNs in the domain name system, they are also going to help to bring the first of billions more people online – people who never use Roman characters in their daily lives."

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HASTAC blogs: HASTAC Scholars at the UW: What Does Digital Scholarship Do?

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 01:43:40 +0000

During the 2009-10 academic year at the University of Washington, the UW HASTAC Scholars are organizing "What Does Digital Scholarship Do?", a conversation series aimed at sharing digital work-in-progress, exploring core texts in the digital humanities, and discussing common practices in digital scholarship.

Grand Text Auto: ELO_AI: Archive & Innovate

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 16:55:29 +0000

The Electronic Literature Organization’s
Fourth International Conference
& Program of Digitally Mediated Literary Art

June 3-6, 2010
Brown University
Providence, Rhode Island, USA
Organized by the ELO and Writing Digital Media
at the Brown University Literary Arts Program
dedicated to Robert Coover

The Electronic Literature Organization and Brown University’s Literary Arts Program invite submissions to the Electronic Literature Organization 2010 Conference to be held from June 3-6, 2008 in Providence, Rhode Island, USA.

electronic literature
writing digital media
language-driven digital poesis
literal art

We welcome papers and presentations on a broad range of topics. The conference will focus on the theory, criticism, close-reading, practice and archiving of language-driven digital art and poetics. Our gathering will also embrace all the related cultural practices that continue to be addressed by scholars and artists in our growing field:

expressive processing
computational art
artificial cognition and intelligence
aesthetic gaming
information art
codework
digitally mediated performance
network & media art & activism

In addition we will give a special welcome to papers that engage with the contribution that Robert Coover has made to our field. A festschrift comprised of papers from the conference is proposed and Professor Coover will be our chief featured eWriter. (Other featured speakers to be announced shortly.)

In conjunction with the three-day conference, there will be a juried Program of Language-Driven Digital Art, concentrating on but not confined to installation works. We plan to show the selected work in gallery spaces close to the conference venue in downtown Providence over a two week period. Subject to funding restrictions, selected artists will be awarded bursaries to assist with attending the conference. Submission guidelines will be posted on the conference website by mid November.

Deadline for Submissions: December 15, 2009
Notification of Acceptance: January 25, 2010

PLEASE NOTE: Deadline for full papers will be May 1, 2010 to allow for reflection and exchange on the papers prior to the conference and to get head-start in the publication process.

The basic cost of the conference is $150; graduate students and non-affiliated artists pay only $100.

Conference registration covers access to all events, the reception, some meals, and shuttle transportation.

All conference attendees are also expected to join the ELO before the conference and this can be done at registration.

We are planning to implement online submission and registration. Before submitting, please consult the conference website at …

http://ai.eliterature.org

… where these facilities will be available and where you will find much more information about both the content and the form of the conference and arts program.

After consulting the website, for further queries and all email correspondence contact:

elo dot ai at eliterature dot org

The above address should be used for all conference business. It will checked by myself and also those colleagues and students who will be assisting me with the conference organization. But I appreciate that you may sometimes also want to get in touch with the conference organizer:

John Cayley, Literary Arts Program
Box 1923, Brown University
68 1/2 Brown Street
Providence, RI 02912, USA
office: +1 401 863 3966, John underscore Cayley at brown dot edu

The Conference is currently sponsored and supported by The Electronic Literature Organization, Brown University Literary Arts Program, Brown University Creative Arts Council, Brown University Library, and the RISD D+M Program.

Any organization or individual in receipt of this call who would like to sponsor and support this major international conference, please get in touch. External sponsors are being sought and will be appropriately acknowledged.

HASTAC blogs: Useful Technology and Fun Too!

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 16:41:27 +0000

I was just sent a link to a YouTube video that shows a remarkable use of technology to help with an everyday sort of problem: it's remarkable for its simplicity. I think this highlights what gamers and educators inherently know, but which is often discounted for its importance. Check out the resu

HASTAC blogs: Climate at the Crossroads

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 15:21:03 +0000

At a recent panel, a professor I work with asked, “What would happen if we had a climate crisis and nobody came?” When I read news reports (for instance this AP story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091022/ap_on_re_us/us_climate_poll) that suggest a la

HASTAC blogs: Technology, Corporations, and the University

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 05:53:47 +0000

Can digital technologies help us resist the corporate university?

Grand Text Auto: Eludamos Posts New Issue, Seeks Articles, Volunteers

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 04:13:22 +0000

Those of us who study computer and video games are very fortunate to have two free, online, peer-reviewed journals that do not assess page fees: Game Studies and Eludamos. And, there is at least one more free, online, peer-reviewed journal that does not assess page fees and includes articles about computer and video games: Digital Humanities Quarterly.

That’s the preface to my mentioning that a new issue (vol. 3, no. 2) of Eludamos is now out.

Also, that journal has issued a new call for papers:

The new call for papers for “Eludamos. Journal for Computer Game Culture” is now open, and again, we cordially invite submissions dealing with everything that is relevant to the field of game studies.

All articles undergo a double blind peer review process except for
papers submitted to the game review section. We expect all
submissions to be in English and accept full papers only. For further
specifications about our submission guidelines please
consult the Eludamos site.

Eludamos also seeks volunteers to do editorial and proofreading work:

We are happy to announce that since its initiation three years ago, not just Eludamos’ readership but also its submission numbers have grown steadily. Thus we are looking to expand the ranks of our editors and proof-readers. Please note that all positions are honorary.

We are specifically looking for a book review editor. The editor’s responsibility would be to identify “hot topics” and to solicit reviews of new publications that deal with them.

We are also hoping to attract two volunteers for copy editing / proof reading.

Please send a short statement of interest via e-mail to the following address: ajahn2 at uni-goettingen dot de

HASTAC blogs: Digital Cities and Digital Literacies

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 00:52:22 +0000

Adam Greenfield's recent contribution to Wired UK magazine says that the complexity of the digital city requires translators, or urbanists, with a specialized understanding of networked urbanism. I'm not so sure...

Voces Moviles (Mobile Voices)

Open Access News: U.S. House Science committee considering OA -- in secret

noreply@blogger.com (Gavin Baker) — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 16:00:40 +0000

The Association of American Universities yesterday posted a series of documents relating to a previously-unpublicized effort by the U.S. House Committee on Science and Technology. From the proposal, Roundtable on Public Access to Federal Research and Data:

... The House Science and Technology Committee, which has oversight of the federal civilian R&D enterprise, has a strong interest in [the question of public access]. The Committee seeks to convene a Roundtable of the key stakeholders to explore and develop an appropriate consensus regarding access to and preservation of federally funded research information that addresses the needs of all interested parties.

The progress of science and technology is very dependent on:

The wide dissemination of research results and data from which new science is born;

A peer review system that ensures the quality and integrity of scientific research results and analyses; and

Preservation and access to the archive of historic and current research results.

The federal government is an important funder of basic and applied research in the United States. As a result of this stewardship, the government should provide resources and establish policies where appropriate to facilitate access to scientific data and publications and preserve an accessible record to both entities. In doing so, the government must take into account the important role of the private sector in this enterprise. ...

To this end, a Roundtable forum is proposed to discuss these issues. ... Participants will be asked to contribute their expertise and proposed solutions on the respective role of the federal government, libraries, institutional repositories and the scholarly publishers on the topics of access and preservation of the results of federally funded research. ...

The total number of participants will be limited (to approximately 10) in order to facilitate the scheduling and productivity of the meetings. The initial roundtable meeting will be chaired by representatives of the House Science and Technology Committee with appropriate support and advice from staff in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Roundtable participants will be selected by the S&T Committee based on their interest and expertise on the issue. ...

To promote an open dialogue and exchange and to foster working toward a fair and balanced solution, participants will be at the table as knowledgeable individuals, but not as official representatives of their parent organizations. ... Participants will be asked to refrain from public disclosure of Roundtable deliberations until a consensus report has been completed. ...

The proposal is undated, but the status report states the roundtable was convened in "early summer 2009".

The AAU documents also include a list of participants and biographies of the roundtable members.

From the status report, dated October 29, 2009:

... In-person meetings and conference calls have taken place over the summer and early fall, with the goal of producing a consensus report containing views and recommendations before the end of the year. The Roundtable report will be submitted to the HSTC and OSTP and subsequently will be made widely available to all stakeholders as well as the broader public. Members of the Roundtable will be available for comment regarding the report after its public release. ...

Comment. Observers of American politics will know the central role of Congressional committees in policymaking. To date, two committees have given significant consideration to OA: the House Appropriations Committee, which passed the NIH mandate (and the earlier voluntary policy), and the House Judiciary Committee, whose chairman introduced the anti-public access Fair Copyright in Research Works Act and which held a hearing on the bill. (FRPAA was referred to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs, but that committee has not held a hearing on that bill in either its current or previous form. In addition, questions about OA have occasionally been asked of executive branch officials and nominees in their oversight committees.) Noticeably absent from that list, as I've previously noted, are committees with jurisdiction over science or education -- arguably the committees best suited to consider policies issues facing the research community and higher education. This effort changes that.

In addition, the involvement of the Executive Office of Science and Technology Policy is the first significant public engagement of the Obama White House with OA. (The Bush White House expressed mild concern about the NIH mandate, but ultimately signed a bill containing the measure.)

Accordingly, this process has the opportunity to shape discourse about public access in a major way. Unfortunately, since it's secret, we don't have much to go on until the recommendations are released and the participants' vow of silence is lifted.

At first glance, the proposal itself is fairly even-handed. The biggest criticism I can level so far is that, while presuming increased access to be beneficial, it fails to ask the crucial question of what exactly are the benefits of access and the costs of lack of access. Nevertheless, the proposal counters two claims sometimes heard from (or implied by) opponents of OA: that greater access is not necessary (e.g. that benefits from OA would be negligible) and that government has no proper role in access and preservation.

There's also the question of focus. This roundtable was tasked with considering access and preservation to publications and data from federally-funded research, rather than a narrower focus only on peer-reviewed article manuscripts. While other types of documents should be considered, that shouldn't distract from a swift recommendation for a FRPAA-style mandate.

In tagging the documents for the OATP, Peter remarks, "Is the membership list balanced? Read it and decide for yourselves." Of course, the theory behind this arrangement is that members will check their agendas at the door and work together as unbiased experts, so "balance" wouldn't matter. We'll only learn later (if ever) if practice followed theory in this case.

Update. Post title revised to more accurately reflect the essence of the matter.

HASTAC blogs: HASTAC@KAIST (Daejeon, Korea)

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 11:28:35 +0000

HASTAC@KAIST takes me to Daejeon and then Seoul, South Korea. I've been to several countries in Asia but this is my first trip to Korea. And my first workshop with CIO's of the international and Pacific Rim military, science, and industrial complex. I expect I will learn more in the next two weeks than I can even imagine which, of course, is why I am going. For that, of course, is the theory of my new book, that you only learn by exciting (in the neurological sense and imaginative senses too) yourself out of your preconceptions and that doesn't happen when you spend all your time hanging around in your discipline, with your generation, in your country, in your culture and subculture, clucking derogatorily about how everything is going to the dogs.

HASTAC blogs: HASTAC.org downtime on Tuesday Thursday

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 18:01:10 +0000

UPDATE: The downtime has been postponed to Thursday.

Digital Arts & Humanities, King's College: Museums and the Web 2010: Demonstration Proposals due Dec 31, 2009

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:42:45 +0000

At MW2010 museum staff members will show sites created in a non-profit environment and explain the workings behind them to their colleagues. Informal demonstration sessions are a chance to see many sites close-up and talk one-on-one with colleagues about their designs and the decisions that went into them. The Demonstration Hall is set up in the Exhibit Hall. Delegates move from booth to booth for individual discussions with Demonstrators. Call for Participation [read more...]

Digital Arts & Humanities, King's College: Museums and the Web 2010

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:36:52 +0000

Start: 13/04/2010 - 09:30 End: 17/04/2010 - 17:30 Timezone: US/Mountain Museums and the Web is an annual conference exploring the social, cultural, design, technological, economic, and organizational issues of culture, science and heritage on-line. Taking an international perspective, MW reviews and analyzes the issues and impacts of networked cultural, natural and scientific heritage. Our community has been meeting since 1997, imagining, tracking, analyzing, and influencing the role museums play on the Web.

HASTAC blogs: Watermarks made stupider

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:51:38 +0000

Author John Scalzi just made an interesting blog post regarding Amazon's patent of a new method of tracking e-books. The method, such

HASTAC blogs: Watermarks made stupider

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:47:14 +0000

Author John Scalzi just made an interesting blog post regarding Amazon's patent of a new method of tracking e-books. The method, such

Grand Text Auto: Flanagan at MIT, Hood Museum

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:27:10 +0000

Tiltfactor’s Mary Flanagan will be visiting MIT’s Gambit lab on Monday 2nd November, for Introduction to Game Studies. Later in the day she is speaking at the MIT series Purple Blurb about her art practice as it relates to her theory of Critical Play.

On Tuesday 3rd November, Flanagan is speaking in a Lunchtime Gallery Talk at 12:30pm related to the exhibition currently on, The Art of Sonia Landy Sheridan.

Institute for the Future of the Book: the android OS

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 12:48:28 +0000

two interesting pieces about the importance of the Android OS to "the future of the book"

http://ireaderreview.com/2009/10/27/androids-impact-on-ereading/
http://ebooktest.wordpress.com/2009/10/27/the-coming-android-mini-tablet-flood/

HASTAC blogs: When the Bots Get Real (Part One)

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 12:32:44 +0000

What happens when your site is being spammed not by automated bots but by real humans who are obviously being paid some nominal amount to pretend they are legit? They can read the captcha, take the math tests, and can register and fill out the required bio. It means that real humans have to wade through all of these registrations, one by one, to figure out who is legit and who is dying to become a member of HASTAC in order that they can plant their url's throughout the site, hawking replica purses, six pack abs, great sex, or hydroxycut. These are the equivalent of the "Gold Farmers" but, instead of being hired at sweatshop wages to play your MMOPG for you while you hold down your day job, these false registerers are obviously being paid to go to well-traveled sites to lure others. I don't think they have a name yet so we can call them "Gold Harvesters."

HASTAC blogs: Peace Through Video Games

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 12:15:09 +0000

Reblogged from DUKE RESEARCH, this story features a winner of the HASTAC/MacArthur Foundation Digital Media and Learning Competition's first cycle of awards, Tim Lenoir (PI) and his peaceful strategy negotiating simulation game, Virtual Peace. EMERGENCE is the multi-player net phase of the game. It's amazing.

And exciting as we move toward launching our third Competition next month to think what a "third generation" of digital media and learning will bring!

HASTAC blogs: Creative Commons at the JEANC Conference

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 11:57:37 +0000

Ahrash Bissell and I were in Sacramento for the JEANC conference this past weekend (Journalism Education Association of Northern California). It was great to see so many of the Student Journalism 2.0 students at the conference, and to see the Palo Alto and Mont

Student Journalism 2.0

HASTAC blogs: Are you going into the cave?

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 04:20:31 +0000

One of the hallmarks of the digital humanities is the collaborative nature of the work.What we do is interdisciplinary by nature, and we generally believe that the more eyeballs a project receives, the better. We also fully recognize that no one person has all the expertise necessary to move thin

Grand Text Auto: Mary Flanagan Speaks in Purple Blurb, Monday 11/2 6pm

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 03:42:25 +0000

On Monday (November 2) at 6pm in MIT’s room 14E-310,

The Purple Blurb series of readings and presentations on digital writing will present a talk by

Mary Flanagan

author of Critical Play: Radical Game Design (MIT Press, 2009)

Mary Flanagan is the creator of [giantJoystick], and author of [theHouse] among other digital writing works. She is Sherman Fairchild Distinguished Professor in Digital Humanities at Dartmouth, where she directs Tiltfactor, a lab focused on the design of activists and socially-conscious software.

Flanagan investigates everyday technologies through critical writing, artwork, and activist design projects. Flanagan’s work has been exhibited internationally at museums, festivals, and galleries, including: the Guggenheim, The Whitney Museum of American Art, SIGGRAPH, and The Banff Centre. Her projects have been funded by the National Science Foundation, the Pacific Cultural Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Flanagan writes about popular culture and digital media such as computer games, virtual agents, and online spaces in order to understand their affect on culture. Her co-edited collection reload: rethinking women + cyberculture with Austin Booth was published by MIT Press in 2002. She is also co-author with Matteo Bittanti of Similitudini. Simboli. Simulacri ( SIMilarities, Symbols, Simulacra ) on The Sims game (in Italian, Unicopli 2003), and the co-editor of the collection re:skin (2007).

Flanagan is also the creator of The Adventures of Josie True, the first web-based adventure game for girls, and is implementing innovations in pedagogical and values-based game design.

Using the formal language of the computer program or game to create systems which interrogate seemingly mundane experiences such as writing email, using search engines, playing video games, or saving data to the hard drive, Flanagan reworks these activities to blur the line between the social uses of technology, and what these activities tell us about the technology user themselves.

A representative from the MIT Press bookstore will be at the talk offering copies of Flanagan’s books for sale.

DigitalKoans (Charles Bailey): WISPALS Library Consortium Coordinator

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 03:05:10 +0000

The Wisconsin Project for Automated Libraries is recruiting a WISPALS Library Consortium Coordinator.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

The primary responsibilities of the WISPALS Library Consortium Coordinator are to coordinate the Consortium budget and operations, facilitate future growth of the Consortium including marketing Consortium services and establish services to new members, act as liaison between Consortium and automation system and electronic services vendors, and represent the Consortium to other groups and agencies.

Related Posts

DigitalKoans (Charles Bailey): 2010 National Leadership Grant Guidelines Available

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 03:04:23 +0000

The Institute of Museum and Library Services has made its 2010 National Leadership Grant guidelines available.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) is accepting grant applications for the agency’s 2010 National Leadership Grant (NLG) program. Applications, guidelines, and examples of successful proposals can be found on the agency's Web site. The deadline for submitting applications is February 1, 2010.

For the past 12 years, the National Leadership Grants program has been the capstone program for IMLS, providing the agency's highest level of support for innovative projects that provide important research, tools, and models for library and museum programs across the country. Museums and libraries interested in submitting NLG proposals to IMLS can apply for one of two types of grants: Projects or Collaborative Planning Grants. Each of these types applies to the four funding categories: Advancing Digital Resources, Library-Museum Collaboration, Research, and Demonstration.

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DigitalKoans (Charles Bailey): DeepDyve Launches Rental Service for Scholarly Articles

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 03:03:49 +0000

DeepDyve has launched a rental service for scholarly articles.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

DeepDyve today unveiled the world 's largest online rental service for scientific, technical and medical research. From a growing database spanning thousands of journals, DeepDyve now gives consumers and professionals access to more than 30 million articles for as little as $0.99 per article.

"The web is transforming the publishing industry and creating opportunities for new users to access our content," said Martin Frank, Ph. D., executive director of the American Physiological Society. "The rental model that DeepDyve has pioneered enables us to serve these new users without compromising the products we offer to our traditional subscription customers." . . .

DeepDyve . . . offers an array of features and benefits to enrich the searching and reading experience, including:

Free search & preview: Researchers can be certain of an article's relevance before renting.

Personalized suggestions: DeepDyve will automatically display suggested articles based on a user 's profile.

Bookmarks: Favorite articles are saved and displayed on a user 's MyDeepDyve home page for easy access.

Email and RSS alerts: Users can receive regular updates of new articles and search results delivered directly to their email inbox or RSS reader.

More Like This: DeepDyve offers links to related content with every search result and article page. . . .

DeepDyve is currently offering a risk-free, 14-day trial that allows users unlimited access to thousands of authoritative journals at no cost. Users enjoy continuous access to any article until their Free Trial expires, after which they may join one of three plans:

Basic Rental Plan: For just $0.99 per article, users of this “pay-as-you-go” plan can rent and read a premium article from one of the many prestigious journals available through DeepDyve. Articles can be read multiple times for up to 24 hours.

Silver Monthly Plan: For $9.99 per month, users can rent and read up to 20 premium articles per month. Each article can be read multiple times for up to seven days.

Gold Monthly Plan: For $19.99 per month, users can rent and read an unlimited number of articles for an unlimited amount of time. There is no expiration date.

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DigitalKoans (Charles Bailey): "A Defense of the Public Domain: A Scholarly Essay"

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 03:02:19 +0000

Laura N. Gasaway, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor of Law at the University of North Carolina School of Law, has self-archived "A Defense of the Public Domain: A Scholarly Essay" in SelectedWorks.

Here's the abstract:

Much has been written for librarians about copyright law. Despite the importance of the public domain, it has attracted much less scholarly attention than has copyright law generally, and yet a healthy and robust public domain is crucial to our society. It provides the building blocks for authors, composers, artists and movie makers who can borrow from public domain works without seeking permission of copyright owners. Unfortunately, the public domain is under attack from expanding the term of copyright, to making it more difficult for works to enter the public domain to the restoration of some foreign copyrights that had entered the public domain in the United States. Some librarians have asked whether vigorous application of fair use could not substitute for the shrinking public domain. It cannot. Fair use is a defense to copyright infringement and is very fact determinate. A court's finding of fair use applies only to the two parties to the litigation while the public domain is available to everyone from individual users of works, to artists and authors and to publishers and producers. It is crucial that the public domain be energetically defended. Today, it is not clear whether an author can even place his or her work in the public domain since copyright attaches automatically. A statutory method must be developed so that authors who wish to do so can easily place their works in the public domain.

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DigitalKoans (Charles Bailey): Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for Digitization for U.S. Libraries, Archives, and Museums

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 03:01:50 +0000

The Cornell University Library has published Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for Digitization for U.S. Libraries, Archives, and Museums by Peter B. Hirtle, Emily Hudson, and Andrew T. Kenyon. A PDF copy of the book can be freely downloaded and the print version can be purchased from CreateSpace.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

How can cultural heritage institutions legally use the Internet to improve public access to the rich collections they hold?

"Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for Digitization for U.S. Libraries, Archives, and Museums," a new book by published today by Cornell University Library, can help professionals at these institutions answer that question.

Based on a well-received Australian manual written by Emily Hudson and Andrew T. Kenyon of the University of Melbourne, the book has been developed by Cornell University Library's senior policy advisor Peter B. Hirtle, along with Hudson and Kenyon, to conform to American law and practice.

The development of new digital technologies has led to fundamental changes in the ways that cultural institutions fulfill their public missions of access, preservation, research, and education. Many institutions are developing publicly accessible Web sites that allow users to visit online exhibitions, search collection databases, access images of collection items, and in some cases create their own digital content. Digitization, however, also raises the possibility of copyright infringement. It is imperative that staff in libraries, archives, and museums understand fundamental copyright principles and how institutional procedures can be affected by the law.

"Copyright and Cultural Institutions" was written to assist understanding and compliance with copyright law. It addresses the basics of copyright law and the exclusive rights of the copyright owner, the major exemptions used by cultural heritage institutions, and stresses the importance of "risk assessment" when conducting any digitization project. Case studies on digitizing oral histories and student work are also included.

Hirtle is the former director of the Cornell Institute for Digital Collections, and the book evolved from his recognition of the need for such a guide when he led museum and library digitization projects. After reading Hudson and Kenyon's Australian guidelines, he realized that an American edition would be invaluable to anyone contemplating a digital edition.

Anne R. Kenney, the Carl A. Kroch University Librarian at Cornell University, noted: "The Library has a long tradition of making available to other professionals the products of its research and expertise. I am delighted that this new volume can join the ranks with award-winning library publications on digitization and preservation."

As an experiment in open-access publishing, the Library has made the work available in two formats. Print copies of the work are available from CreateSpace, an Amazon subsidiary. In addition, the entire text is available as a free download through eCommons, Cornell University's institutional repository, and from SSRN.com, which already distributes the Australian guidelines.

Related Posts

Found History: Briefly Noted for October 29, 2009

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 02:32:54 +0000

Prep School Library Drops Books in Favor of Kindles — Cushing Academy in Ashburnham, Massachusetts (not far from where I grew up) is in the process of deaccessioning the books in its library in favor of Amazon’s Kindle e-book reader. According to USA Today (hat tip @BryanAlexander), instead of checking out books, from now on Cushing’s students will check out Kindles, pre-loaded with the books they require. Interesting, but I can’t help thinking it’d make more sense to give each kid a Sony Reader or Barnes & Noble Nook and have them download the books they need themselves. Many—if not most—of the book high schoolers need are in the public domain and available on the Sony and B&N devices as free EPUBs from Google Books.

Ubuntu 9.10 — The latest release of the Ubuntu Linux distribution (Version 9.10 “Karmic Koala”) is now available for download. Among the new goodies: 2 GB of free online file storage for syncing through Ubuntu One. I know what I’m doing this weekend.

Verizon Droid, Android 2.0, and Why Early Adopters May Get Burned — Anyone who has read this blog or listened to the Digital Campus podcast knows that I’m an Android fan and optimist. I know I should be cheering the release of the Motorola Droid for Verizon, which—with the help of Android 2.0—looks like it’ll give the iPhone a run for its money. Unfortunately, it looks like the original Android phone, the T-Mobile G1, of which I am a proud (if not always 100% satisfied) owner, may not be able to run the 2.0 version of Android. I understand the importance of improving the Android experience to attract converts, but early adopters should see those improvements as well as the newcomers. Burning your loyal user base doesn’t seem good business. Then again, maybe the Android folks know that many of us will just suck up the extra couple hundred bucks to break our contracts to get our hands on the slick new hardware.

HASTAC blogs: Henry Jenkins on TV 2.0, Convergence Culture and Social Networking

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:03:32 +0000

In a recent article in the Huffington Post, Henry Jenkins---the MIT Media Lab guru, new media visionary and expert on convergence culture--poses the question "In a Social Networking World, What is the Future of TV."

Grand Text Auto: So many great minds~

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 20:33:39 +0000

First there is the series of conversations with folks like Kate Hayles, the Guerrilla Girls, and Brenda Laurel that is happening at Tiltfactor in the variable_d salon held in Hanover NH!

Second, a symposium on complex systems will take place next Friday (Nov. 6) that I thought would be of interest to many of you. It’s on Complex Systems and will be held in Spanos Auditorium at Thayer. Keynotes will be given by Duncan Watts (Yahoo!), George Conrades (Akamai Technologies), and John Donahoe (eBay).

Fantastic! Join us!

HASTAC blogs: Access + Digital Literacy Is the New Civil Rights Part 2: It Is What It Is

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 20:06:33 +0000

In my last blog entry I promised to discuss some of my research in Illinois CTCs as well as some personal and professional technological eye-opening experiences that made me realize I needed to go from the Google earth view to a more street level view. As previously mentioned, these events couple

Access + Digital Literacy

MITH: Coming up @ MITH 11/3: Ben Bederson, Nick Chen, & Matt Kirschenbaum, “The Great Ebook Throwdown”

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 18:03:53 +0000

A MITH Digital Dialogue
Tuesday, November 3, 12:30-1:45
MITH Conference Room, Mckeldin Library B0135

“The Great Ebook Throwdown” with Ben Bederson, Nick Chen, and Matt Kirschenbaum

Ebooks are suddenly everywhere again. Kindle, Nook, iPhone . . . after 2000 years, the codex is getting an upgrade. But what kind of electronic books and electronic reading devices do we really want? Are we trying to improve on the book, or create something new? Something different? Are there some universal design principles we can agree on? And what about the bigger picture: can electronic gadgetry reverse the national decline in reading dramatically documented by agencies such as the NEA? This roundtable discussion led by Ben Bederson, Nick Chen, and Matt Kirschenbaum will feature as many electronic reading and electronic book devices as we can lay our hands on, including some prototypes being developed here at the University of Maryland. We’ll hold them up, pass them around, turn them on, talk some trash, and, in the process, maybe gain just a little bit of insight into what we all want from our electronic book readers. Attendees are encouraged to bring along electronic book devices of their own.

Benjamin B. Bederson is an Associate Professor of Computer Science and the previous director of the Human-Computer Interaction Lab at the Institute for Advanced Computer Studies and iSchool at the University of Maryland. His research is on mobile device interfaces, information visualization, interaction strategies, digital libraries, and accessibility issues such as voting system usability. He is also co-founder and Chief Scientist of Zumobi, a startup offering a mobile content platform based on that research.

Nicholas Chen is a doctoral candidate in the department of Computer Science at the University of Maryland and is affiliated with the Human Computer Interaction Lab (HCIL) at UMD. He is advised by Professor Francois Guimbretiere in the Cornell University Information Science Department. His research is on electronic reading devices, pen-based user interfaces, and interactions for supporting simultaneous use of multiple devices. Previously, he performed the first-ever evaluation of a dual-display electronic reading device.

Matthew G. Kirschenbaum is Associate Professor in the Department of English at the University of Maryland, Associate Director of the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH), and Director of Digital Cultures and Creativity, a new “living/learning” program in the Honors College.

Comint up @ MITH 11/11: Greg Crane, “From the First Year Through Tenure: New Pathways for Humanities in a Digital Age”

View MITH’s complete Digital Dialogues schedule here:
http://www.mith2.umd.edu/programs/mith_speakers_fall_2009.pdf

All talks free and open to the public!

Contact: Neil Fraistat, Director, MITH (www.mith.umd.edu, mith@umd.edu, 5-8927)

Stephen Ramsay: Digital Campus

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 16:25:50 +0000

Continuing this week’s media blitz . . .

The folks at the Center for History and New Media have, at their extreme peril, invited me to be an “irregular” on the Digital Campus podcast (think of a shirt that is discounted because it’s missing a button). This week, I joined Dan Cohen, Mills Kelly, Tom Scheinfeldt, and fellow irregular Bryan Alexander (Research Director for NITLE) in an episode entitled “Theremin Dreams.”

Institute for the Future of the Book: there's no such thing as an amorphous "public"

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 14:43:35 +0000

Cody Brown, an NYU undergrad, just announced Kommons, an ambitious effort to build a new model of news gathering and presentation. I just read his blog post announcing the new venture, "A Public Can Talk To Itself" and find myself deeply disturbed. Although its no longer fashionable to say so, we live in a class society and our news organizations serve the needs of the classes they represent. Brown may very well go on to build the most successful news gathering operation of this new era, but whose interests will it serve? Brown's idea of "the public" is clearly limited to those people who have access to technology, to the opportunity to learn the skills necessary to express themselves with that technology and the time to be a "citizen journalist." Brown's use of his mentor Clay Shirky's automobile analogy confirms this when he writes: "A hundred years ago, back when cars were first being sold, you didn?t just buy one and drive it off the lot, the car itself was so complicated and difficult to manage that you hired a professional chauffeur who also served as a kind of mechanic." I"m not sure how wealthy you had to be to buy the pre-Model T cars but I'm assuming it was a very small percentage of "the public."

A last point, i find it fascinating and not insignificant that Brown has named his new venture, Kommons. I'm sure he just thinks it's cute, but if he checks the Wikipedia, he'll find there is a specific historical meaning often attached to the switch from K to C. I'm sure he didn't set out consciously to trash the concept of the Commons but then i'm also sure he doesnt' see any problems with his definition of public either.

From Wikipedia

"K" replacing "C" (article here)

Replacing the letter ?c? with ?k? in the first letter of a word came into use by the Ku Klux Klan during its early years in the mid to late 1800s. The concept is continued today within the ranks of the Klan. They call themselves "konservative KKK."

In the 1960s and early 1970s in the United States, leftists, particularly the Yippies, sometimes used Amerika rather than "America" in referring to the United States.[1] It is still used as a political statement today.[2] It is likely that this was originally an allusion to the German spelling of America, and intended to be suggestive of Nazism, a hypothesis that the Oxford English Dictionary supports.

In broader usage, the replacement of the letter "C" with "K" denotes general political skepticism about the topic at hand and is intended to discredit or debase the term in which the replacement occurs. [9] Detractors sometimes spell former president Bill Clinton's name as "Klinton" or "Klintoon". [emphasis mine]

A similar usage in Spanish (and Portuguese too) is to write okupa rather than "ocupa" (often on a building or area occupied by squatters [10], referring to the name adopted by okupación activist groups), which is particularly remarkable because the letter "k" is rarely found in either Spanish or Portuguese words. It stems from Spanish anarchist and punk movements which used "k" to signal rebellion [3].

The letter "C" is also commonly changed to a "K" in a non-pejorative way in KDE, a desktop environment for Unix-like operating systems.

HASTAC blogs: 40 Years Ago: The Message that Conceived the Internet

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 13:16:56 +0000

On Oct. 29, 1969, UCLA student Charles Kline sent the first message over the ARPANET, the computer network that later became known as the Internet. Though only the "l" and "o" of his message ("login") were successfully transmitted, the interactive exchange ushered in a technological revolution that has — as anyone alive long enough to witness the shift knows — revolutionized human interaction.

Grand Text Auto: Landscape of open source games

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 11:21:39 +0000

Yo Frankie! An open source platformer created using Blender.

I recently gave a presentation on the landscape of open source software in computer games at the Univ. Rey Juan Carlos, where I am currently visiting the Libresoft research group. My slides are available here.

While much of the talk covered well-known libraries (SDL, OpenAL), game engines (Ogre, Irrlicht), physics engines (Bullet, Tokamak), and content creation tools (Blender, GIMP), there were a few surprises. One was how many open source game-creation systems I found (4, more than the zero I expected). These are Game Editor (2d with export to some mobile devices), Construct (2d, some 3d), Novashell (2d), and Sandbox (3d). Another surprise was the game Yo Frankie! (pictured above), which has very high quality animation and artwork, and was produced using Blender.

A disappointment was the state of open content sharing. While some sites, like OpenGameArt and New Grounds provide tagging with a Creative Commons license, far more common are sites like Google’s 3D Warehouse that have site-specific terms of use, and provide no ability for artists to indicate they are willing to share their work via Creative Commons or an open source license.

Melissa Terras: btw

noreply@blogger.com (Melissa) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 08:56:08 +0000

My local Sainsburys have stopped stocking "Dr" Gillian McKeith products (or even Ms Gillian McKeith products). Over priced, over promoted, non-medicated muesli be gone!

Result.

Melissa Terras: DRH Domain Name Fail

noreply@blogger.com (Melissa) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 08:52:32 +0000

I was just wondering where next year's Digital Resources in the Humanities and Arts conference was going to be next year - sadly I missed the Dublin conference this year as I had a friend's wedding in the diary so didnt hear the announcement about 2010 - but it surprised me I couldnt find the DRH website anywhere.

My mug from DRH 99 clearly says the URL is http://www.drh.org.uk/. Jump to the link to see where that takes you now.

Sigh. When the Digital Humanities community cant do something like renew a domain name....

I would ping the secretary to tell them, but I dont know who it is, as the website is down.

And if anyone knows where DRHA 2010 will be, and when, let me know.

Update; Lou Burnard (who is currently secretary) says DRHA 2010 will be at Brunel, London. London-tastic for the digital humanities this year!

DigitalKoans (Charles Bailey): Towards Repository Preservation Services. Final Report from the JISC Preserv 2 Project

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 03:06:42 +0000

Steve Hitchcock, David Tarrant, and Les Carr have self-archived Towards Repository Preservation Services. Final Report from the JISC Preserv 2 Project in the ECS EPrints Repository.

Here's the abstract:

Preserv 2 investigated the preservation of data in digital institutional repositories, focussing in particular on managing storage, data and file formats. Preserv 2 developed the first repository storage controller, which will be a feature of EPrints version 3.2 software (due 2009). Plugin applications that use the controller have been written for Amazon S3 and Sun cloud services among others, as well as for local disk storage. In a breakthrough application Preserv 2 used OAI-ORE to show how data can be moved between two repository softwares with quite distinct data models, from an EPrints repository to a Fedora repository. The largest area of work in Preserv 2 was on file format management and an 'active' preservation approach. This involves identifying file formats, assessing the risks posed by those formats and taking action to obviate the risks where that could be justified. These processes were implemented with reference to a technical registry, PRONOM from The National Archives (TNA), and DROID (digital record object identification service), also produced by TNA. Preserv 2 showed we can invoke a current registry to classify the digital objects and present a hierarchy of risk scores for a repository. Classification was performed using the Preserv2 EPrints preservation toolkit. This 'wraps' DROID in an EPrints repository environment. This toolkit will be another feature available for EPrints v3.2 software. The result of file format identification can indicate a file is at risk of becoming inaccessible or corrupted. Preserv 2 developed a repository interface to present formats by risk category. Providing risk scores through the live PRONOM service was shown to be feasible. Spin-off work is ongoing to develop format risk scores by compiling data from multiple sources in a new linked data registry.

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DigitalKoans (Charles Bailey): Digital Library Systems Specialist at Singapore Management University

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 03:04:15 +0000

Singapore Management University is recruiting a Digital Library Systems Specialist.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

The Library seeks a dynamic, innovative and service-oriented professional to join the Digital Library Systems Team in supporting and enhancing the new systems. Reporting to the Systems Librarian, the Digital Library Systems Specialist is primarily responsible for managing the Institutional Repository (IR). Other duties and responsibilities include, but are not limited to: assisting the Systems Librarian in managing the Digital Library systems including Millennium, the ILMS, and the other system modules from Innovative Interfaces Inc.; helping support the Library RFID management system; identifying and analyzing user requirements; providing optimal operation of information systems and supporting other technical staff in meeting user needs. The successful candidate will work in conjunction with the University Webmaster to support the library website and with the library staff to introduce web services and coordinate and support content development.

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DigitalKoans (Charles Bailey): CNI Conversations Series Podcasts

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 03:03:11 +0000

The Coalition for Networked Information launched the CNI Conversations series with Clifford A. Lynch in September.

Two podcasts are now available:

Oct. 6, 2009
Discussion topics included:

Internet2
NDIIPP storage systems symposium
Bamboo Project
University libraries and presses

Sept. 15, 2009
Discussion topics included:

DataNet
Google Books proposed settlement
Library measures for the challenging economic climate
Future of newspapers

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DigitalKoans (Charles Bailey): Q&A Webinar with Five Open Access Publishers

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 03:02:36 +0000

The Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association has made available a Webinar of a question-and-answer session with five open access publishers.

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DigitalKoans (Charles Bailey): Duke, NC State, and UNC Data Sharing Cloud Computing Project Launched

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 03:01:47 +0000

Duke University, North Carolina State University, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have launched a two-year project to share digital data.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

An initiative that will determine how Triangle area universities access, manage, and share ever-growing stores of digital data launched this fall with funding from the Triangle Universities Center for Advanced Studies, Inc. (TUCASI).

The two-year TUCASI data-Infrastructure Project (TIP) will deploy a federated data cyberinfrastructure—or data cloud—that will manage and store digital data for Duke University, NC State University, UNC Chapel Hill, and the Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI) and allow the campuses to more seamlessly share data with each other, with national research projects, and private sector partners in Research Triangle Park and beyond.

RENCI and the Data Intensive Cyber Environments (DICE) Center at UNC Chapel Hill manage the $2.7 million TIP. The provosts, heads of libraries and chief information officers at the three campuses signed off on the project just before the start of the fall semester.

"The TIP focuses on federation, sharing and reuse of information across departments and campuses without having to worry about where the data is physically stored or what kind of computer hardware or software is used to access it," said Richard Marciano, TIP project director, and also professor at UNC's School of Information and Library Science (SILS), executive director of the DICE Center, and a chief scientist at RENCI. "Creating infrastructure to support future Triangle collaboratives will be very powerful."

The TIP includes three components—classroom capture, storage, and future data and policy, which will be implemented in three phases. In phase one, each campus and RENCI will upgrade their storage capabilities and a platform-independent system for capturing and sharing classroom lectures and activities will be developed. . . .

In phase two, the TIP team will develop policies and practices for short- and long-term data storage and access. Once developed, the policies and practices will guide the research team as it creates a flexible, sustainable digital archive, which will connect to national repositories and national data research efforts. Phase three will establish policies for adding new collections to the TIP data cloud and for securely sharing research data, a process that often requires various restrictions. "Implementation of a robust technical and policy infrastructure for data archiving and sharing will be key to maintaining the Triangle universities' position as leaders in data-intensive, collaborative research," said Kristin Antelman, lead researcher for the future data and policy working group and associate director for the Digital Library at NC State.

The tasks of the TIP research team will include designing a model for capturing, storing and accessing course content, determining best practices for search and retrieval, and developing mechanisms for sharing archived content among the TIP partners, across the Triangle area and with national research initiatives. Campus approved social media tools, such as YouTube and iTunesU, will be integrated into the system.

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DigitalKoans (Charles Bailey): Stanford University Preparing Proposal for Text Mining Center Providing Access to 30 Million Digitized Books Plus Highwire Journals

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 23:04:04 +0000

In "Possible Text Mining Opportunity at Stanford," Matthew Jockers describes a research proposal being developed at Stanford University for a text mining center that would provide access to 30 million digitized books plus Highwire Journals.

Here's an excerpt:

As I'm sure many of you already know, Stanford has been closely involved with Google's book scanning project, and we (Stanford) are currently preparing a proposal for the creation of a text mining / analysis Center on campus. The core assets of the proposed Center would include all of the Google data (approx. 30 million books) plus all of our Highwire data and all of our licensed content. We see a wide range of research opportunities for this collection, and we are envisioning a Center that would offer various levels of interaction with scholars. In particular we envision a "tiered" service model that would, on one hand, allow technically challenged researchers to work with Center staff in formulating research questions and, on the other, an opportunity for more technically advanced scholars to write their own algorithms and run them on the corpus. We are imagining the Center as both a resource and as a physical place, a place that will offer support to both internal and external scholars and graduate students.

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HASTAC blogs: Pre-Digital Edutainment: Jeopardy as Classroom Educational Game Paradigm

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 19:04:46 +0000

Digital Arts & Humanities, King's College: Digital Futures: From Digitization to Delivery: London, UK

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:37:57 +0000

Start: 19/04/2010 End: 23/04/2010 Timezone: Europe/London Book early as places are limited and early bird discounts are available! http://www.digitalconsultancy.net/digifutures/ Led by international experts, Digital Futures focuses on the creation, delivery and preservation of digital resources from cultural and memory institutions. Lasting 5 days, Digital Futures is aimed at managers and other practitioners from the library, museum, heritage, media and cultural sectors looking to understand the strategic and management issues involved in developing digital resources from digitisation to delivery. [read more...]

HASTAC blogs: Doodle. It may change your life.

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:32:05 +0000

I was recently introduced to the website doodle.com where you can set up a poll for scheduling purposes or simply schedule something. It's easy to use and has changed my work life: I regularly am charged with setting up meetings and have to find a date and time

Digital Arts & Humanities, King's College: Digital Futures Academy: From Digitization to Delivery: Sydney, Australia

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:22:25 +0000

Start: 01/02/2010 End: 05/02/2010 Timezone: Australia/Sydney Book early as places are limited and early bird discounts are available! http://www.digitalconsultancy.net/digifutures/ Led by international experts, Digital Futures focuses on the creation, delivery and preservation of digital resources from cultural and memory institutions. Lasting 5 days, Digital Futures is aimed at managers and other practitioners from the library, museum, heritage, media and cultural sectors looking to understand the strategic and management issues involved in developing digital resources from digitisation to delivery. [read more...]

HASTAC blogs: Audience as network

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 14:33:36 +0000

Yesterday I was invited to be on a panel speaking with a gathering of Christian publishers at Duke's Divinity School. As an introduction, I gave my standard presentation about the five aspects of effective networks, but to make it more relevant to this audience, I started with two seminal works ab

HASTAC blogs: Augmented Deliberation

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 14:10:20 +0000

We introduce augmented deliberation as a possible design solution that addresses uniquely difficult contexts where deliberation is complicated by one or many external factors, including language barriers, power differentials, visualization and challenges with communicating professional discourses. It is specifically relevant in the context of urban planning, because the prospect of communicating complex urban concepts associated with rather abstract spatial dynamics is a significant challenge - one that requires creative solutions. Augmented deliberation is the process whereby a group of people deliberate in a face-to-face setting while they are simultaneously immersed in virtual environments. It consists of three design values: 1) it is a multimedia group communication process which balances the specific affordances of digital technologies with the established qualities of face-to-face group deliberation; 2) it emphasizes the power of experience; and 3) it promotes sustainability and reproducibility through digital tracking.

Participatory Chinatown

HASTAC blogs: Campus Technology Article Describes Several Digital Humanities Projects Across the U.S.

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 13:59:26 +0000

The October 2009 Campus Technology has an article that describes several digital humanities projects across the U.S.

Grand Text Auto: It’s All (About) Fun and Games

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 08:54:09 +0000

Koster's "A Theory of Fun for Game Design"

I’m a new member of the lab here, and that means that I’ve got a lot of learning to do. I need to learn about the different projects in the lab, learn about the various systems involved in those projects, and even about programming languages used in those systems. But I also need to learn about the theory that drives those systems, and more broadly, the theory that motivates the work in the lab. So for the past few days, I’ve been reading articles–and even a short book–about the theory of fun in games.

Why is this important to the lab? Here at EIS, we build AI systems that work with games. Many of them are focused on building a particular type of experience, or enabling developers to do something new. And since we’re building game experiences and tools to assist in their creation, we need to be able to talk and think seriously about what makes games good or bad. If you build an AI system that enables some new mode of interaction in a game, it’s often not enough to say that it’s new; you usually want to make a claim that it’s good, and that involves either user testing, or some theory that you can point to to claim that it’s probably good. Additionally, before you even build the system, you want to be able to design it according to principles that will help ensure that the finished product is good. And so we study the theory of fun in games in order to better understand the medium with which we work, and the ways in which we can expand and contribute to that medium.

These are my thoughts about fun in games, distilled from the reading that I’ve been doing. First, fun isn’t something that games are. Fun is something that people have (often while playing games). To put it technically, fun is a property of an experience (which is what occurs during a particular instance of gameplay). When we say that a game is fun, we’re making a generalization about the kinds of experiences it helps us have. The reasons that a game helps us have fun experiences are not always directly under the control of the game creator, so it’s important to recognize this. As game creators, we need to think about what aspects of the game experience we can control, and what aspects we cannot control. When these uncontrolled aspects get in the way of fun, can we adjust the controlled aspects to compensate for this? Can we even detect the uncontrolled aspects? A good example of this is player behavior in multiplayer games. The game creator doesn’t have direct control over player behavior, and player behavior is important for whether or not the game is fun. But the game creator can exercise limited influence over player behavior through psychological cues, and can give players control over their collective behavior to try to ensure a positive experience. Things like the ability to mute other players or vote to kick players in first person shooters are an example of this. The game creator can’t prevent players from behaving in a way that annoys other players, but ey can give the players tools to help mitigate this behavior. So the first step towards an understanding of fun in games is to recognize that the fun isn’t in the game, it’s in the experience of the game, and because of that, game designers should pay attention to all aspects of that experience, including ones that they cannot control directly.

Given this understanding of fun, one might ask: “What makes game experiences fun?” But I think that there’s another question that should be answered (or at least considered) first: “What does it mean to be fun?” To be more precise: is fun a monolithic concept, and we classify experiences as simply fun or not, or is it a group of related concepts, meaning that things can be fun for different reasons or in different ways? My answer to this question is that to some degree, both descriptions are valid. If you ask someone whether something was fun or not, they can often give a simple yes or no answer in the broad sense, and even though a more detailed analysis is possible, this simple, broad, yes-or-no sense of fun is still valid. In fact, I think that sometimes it’s not useful to break down why an experience was fun, because the reasons can be extremely complex and specific. On the other side of things, there are multiple ways in which an experience can be fun. Things can be fun because they’re challenging, or because they’re beautiful, or for many other reasons. There are a few of these reasons that feature prominently in most games, and those reasons are what the literature focuses on. But I believe that it’s important to also acknowledge the role of other, more minor varieties of fun, because each way in which a game can be fun has the potential to become the main variety of fun in a game that targets it. The “observational immersionist” style of games mentioned in the previous post is a good example of this: in many games, part of the fun lies in exploration and appreciation of beauty. But when this kind of fun becomes the focus of the game, the result is a game that feels very different than many mainstream games, which often focus heavily on challenge as a source of fun.

So using this idea of many varieties of fun, we can ask what the sources of fun are. How do we create the different types of fun? This distinction between a kind of fun and a cause of fun is often subtle, and in some cases perhaps unnecessary, but I think that it’s important to keep the two separate. For a simple example, we can identify challenge as a particular kind of fun. A more thorough analysis would perhaps be more specific, but we can say that in general, people have fun through experiencing and overcoming challenges. This is a kind of fun. How do you create it? You create challenges and let the player experience them. So challenging situations create “challenge fun”. Seems pretty obvious, right? But it’s important to note that there are some constraints on the challenging situation: in very broad terms, it can’t be too simple or too difficult (Of course, this means different things for different people, which is a reason for thinking of fun as a property of an experience rather than a property of a game). More subtly, there are any number of situations that could count as challenges, and produce challenge fun. Maybe the game itself is quite easy, but a community of players has taken to playing it without looking at the screen. In this case, the experience may have the property of “challenge fun”, even though the challenge is not a part of the game: it’s a part of the particular game-experience. So the separation of “types of fun” from their causes is useful in order to think clearly about the goal: the creation of fun experiences (of course, other goals are possible, but that’s perhaps a subject for another blog post).

I’ve rambled on a bit about fun and games, and I haven’t really addressed the meat of the problem in detail, but I think I’ve given an overview of one way to think about and look for fun in games. The hard work, which is actually classifying the different types of fun and their causes, is the subject for more than a blog post; in fact, it’s the subject of several books and research papers that I’ve been reading through. But the important points are that fun arises from experiences, not directly from games, and that there are many types and causes of fun, some of which have not been explored much in the context of games.

For anyone curious about what I’ve been reading, here’s the list of what I’ve read to get an introduction to this area:

“Why We Play Games: Four Keys to More Emotion Without Story” by Nicole Lazzaro.
“GameFlow: A Model for Evalucating Player Enjoyment in Games” by Penelope Sweetser and Peta Wyeth.
“An Experiment in Automatic Game Design” by Julian Togelius and Jürgen Schmidhuber.
A Theory of Fun for Game Design by Raph Koster.

One other thing that I’ve not yet read but am interested in is Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. It’s not targeted at games, and in fact looks at fun from a psychological perspective, but it’s cited by most of what I’ve read so far, and is the product of some very thorough research.

DigitalKoans (Charles Bailey): The Fourth Paradigm: Data-Intensive Scientific Discovery

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 03:05:27 +0000

Microsoft Research has released The Fourth Paradigm: Data-Intensive Scientific Discovery.

Of particular interest is the "Scholarly Communication" chapter.

Here are some selections from that chapter:

"Jim Gray’s Fourth Paradigm and the Construction of the Scientific Record," Clifford Lynch
"Text in a Data-Centric World," Paul Ginsparg
"All Aboard: Toward a Machine-Friendly Scholarly Communication System," Herbert Van de Sompel and Carl Lagoze
"I Have Seen the Paradigm Shift, and It Is Us," John Wilbanks

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DigitalKoans (Charles Bailey): Papers from the European Research Area 2009 Conference

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 03:03:00 +0000

Papers from the European Research Area 2009 Conference are now available.

Here's a selection from the "Open Access and Preservation" session:

Open Access And Preservation: How Can Knowledge Sharing Be Improved in ERA? (presentation slides), Alma Swan
"Optimizing Research Sharing in the European Research Area: Cyberinfrastructure, Quality, and Open Access," Jean-Claude Guédon

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DigitalKoans (Charles Bailey): Internet Archive Makes 1.6 Million E-Books Available to One Laptop Per Child Foundation Users

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 03:02:53 +0000

The Internet Archive has made 1.6 million digitized e-books freely available to children who have laptops from the One Laptop Per Child Foundation.

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DigitalKoans (Charles Bailey): HathiTrust Will Release Search Engine Indexing 1.5 Billion Pages from Digitized Books and Other Materials

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 03:01:40 +0000

Next month, the HathiTrust will release a full-text search engine indexing 1.5 billion pages from digitized books and other materials from 25 member research libraries.

An experimental version of the search engine is now available.

Read more about it at "HathiTrust Launching Full-Text Library of Books."

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Found History: Briefly Noted for October 27, 2009

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 01:30:17 +0000

Big Copyright’s History of Anti-Innovation — Ars Technica has an interesting account of the movie studios, music companies, and other large content owners’ historical antipathy to new content delivery mechanisms. Some of the new technologies on the list: the player piano, the television, the .mp3 player, and the digital video recorder.

What the $%@! is Net Neutrality? — Confused about the “net neutrality” issue. The Public Knowledge website has a good intro video. Via @james3neal.

White House Switches to Drupal — The Obama administration has made the switch to Drupal, the open source content management system, for WhiteHouse.gov. Hat tip Rick Shenkman.

Craig Bellamy: Call for Nominations for the 2011 Antonio Zampolli Prize

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 17:45:12 +0000

The Antonio Zampolli Prize is an award of the Alliance of Digital Humanities Organisations (ADHO). Now in its inaugural year, the prize will be given every three years to honour an outstanding scholarly achievement in humanities computing. It is presented by the Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations (ADHO) on behalf of its constituent ...

HASTAC blogs: October Updates: Part II. News and announcements for Digital Media & Learning

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 16:44:19 +0000

A few updates and some announcements:

Save the date! The 1st Annual Digital Media & Learning Conference will be held February 18-20, 2010 in California. Please see below for more details. The URL for

2009

HASTAC blogs: New Center at UC Irvine to Seed Research and Collaboration on Digital Media and Learning

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 16:26:38 +0000

(IRVINE, CA, Oct. 27, 2009) -- Digital media and the Internet are transforming how young people learn, play, socialize, and participate in civic life. A newly-created Digital Media and Learning Research Hub located at the University of California-Irvine will provide a international center to nurture exploration of and build evidence around the impact of digital media on young people's learning and its potential for transforming education. Funded through a $2.97 million grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Center was announced today at a national forum at Google headquarter that brought together leading thinkers around the challenge of reasserting American global leadership in education.

HASTAC blogs: Searching for Learning Effects from Video Games: Some Simple Guidelines

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 16:24:22 +0000

There is a lot of attention today on educational video games. But what should scholars think about when trying to examine the learning effects of games? I offer a few simple guidelines.

HASTAC blogs: How Does the Internet Change Our Idea of Human Nature?

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:48:00 +0000

If the twentieth-century paradigm for the brain is the hardwired CPU, I would argue that the new paradigm for the twenty-first century brain is the iPod or iPhone, with 75,000 possible Apps (and counting) available for downloading, some created by developers, others by users, all in constant need of updates and customising. There's an App for just about everything in the twenty-first century brain because a changing world needs a brain that is not a product but an interactive processor.

Digital Arts & Humanities, King's College: GIS in the Humanities

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 11:05:24 +0000

Start: 16/12/2009 - 10:00 End: 16/12/2009 - 16:30 Timezone: Europe/London http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/heahistory/events/gi... Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and other spatial technologies such as GPS and virtual globes are becoming increasingly used within disciplines such as history, archaeology, literary studies, religious studies and classics. This free workshop, sponsored by Spatial Literacy in Teaching (SPLINT) and the Subject Centre for History, Classics and Archaeology, will provide a basic introduction to GIS as an approach to humanities research and as a technology. [read more...] Archaeology and 3D technology

Literary and Linguistic Computing - current issue: A chronometric approach to Indian alchemical literature

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 04:31:55 +0000

Indian alchemy, a branch of traditional Indian medicine (Ayurveda), has produced a corpus of texts that are difficult to date using regular philological techniques. This article describes a contents-based computational method that is capable of calculating the relative chronology of these texts. Central parts of alchemical literature are encoded in a language model that can be understood by a computer and then compared with an alignment algorithm. Phylogenetic trees derived from these alignments show regularities in the ordering of alchemical texts, and these may be interpreted as temporal patterns. Processing these patterns with a minimization algorithm, we are able to compute a relative chronology of the corpus, which is largely consistent with results obtained using traditional philological techniques.

Literary and Linguistic Computing - current issue: Assessing frequency changes in multistage diachronic corpora: Applications for historical corpus linguistics and the study of language acquisition

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 04:31:55 +0000

The use of corpora that are divided into temporally ordered stages is becoming increasingly wide-spread in historical corpus linguistics. This development is partly due to the fact that more and more resources of this kind are being developed. Since the assessment of frequency changes over multiple periods of time is a relatively recent practice, there are few agreed-upon standards of how such trends should be statistically interpreted. This article addresses the need for a basic analytical toolbox that is specifically tailored to the interpretation of frequency changes in multistage diachronic corpora. We present a number of suggestions for the analysis of data that analysts commonly face in historical studies, but also in the study of language acquisition.

Literary and Linguistic Computing - current issue: Untangling the derivatives: points for clarification in the findings of the Shakespeare Clinic

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 04:31:55 +0000

The work of the Shakespeare Clinic of Claremont McKenna College, led by Ward E.Y. Elliott and Robert J. Valenza, is recognized for its pioneering computer analysis of many early modern texts to determine whether William Shakespeare (1564–1616) wrote the works traditionally ascribed to him. The Clinic achieved its primary objective of eliminating all other known candidates and thus confirming that Shakespeare wrote them. Two general methods of analysis were applied to whole plays and variable-sized large texts: Discrete Composite Analysis and Continuous Composite Analysis.. The first uses univariate analysis to determine acceptance or rejection of forty-eight stylometric tests for each text. The second uses a multi-dimensional composite mean for Shakespeare derived from all forty-eight in order to determine acceptance or rejection for each text. This article notes the omission of Discrete Analysis to take into consideration statistical dependencies between the forty-eight tests, the partly arbitrary ‘handfitting’ of acceptance–rejection boundaries for each of the forty-eight tests, the failure to take into full account the factor of chronology, and the absence of discussion of the part played by prior probabilities as to existing beliefs concerning attribution. By this last point, I mean the role played by the existing traditional consensus as to Shakespeare attribution, prior to linguistic analysis. For Continuous Analysis, it is noted that the stated probabilities are not true probabilities as acknowledged, and that the resulting acceptance–rejection levels for them are calibrated in line with prior beliefs. Principal component analysis is shown to give improved results in dealing with co-authored Shakespeare plays, Henry VIII, Timon of Athens, and Pericles. This does not invalidate the overall aim of the Shakespeare Clinic.

Literary and Linguistic Computing - current issue: Evaluating methods for computer-assisted stemmatology using artificial benchmark data sets

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 04:31:55 +0000

Given a collection of imperfect copies of a textual document, the aim of stemmatology is to reconstruct the history of the text, indicating for each variant the source text from it was copied. We describe an experiment involving three artificial benchmark data sets to which a number of computer-assisted stemmatology methods were applied. Contrary to earlier similar experiments, we propose and use a numerical criterion to evaluate all the solutions. Moreover, our primary data set is significantly larger than used before. The results suggest the superiority of two computer-assisted methods amongst those tested: the maximum parsimony method implemented in the PAUP* software package and a related compression-based method we have proposed in earlier work.

Literary and Linguistic Computing - current issue: Lexical Diversity in a Literary Genre: A Corpus Study of the Rgveda

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 04:31:55 +0000

This research¹ evaluates the extent to which lexical diversity, measured by frequent content words, hapax legomena, and type-token ratios (TTRs), is dependent on three features of the genre of the oral Indo-Aryan cultic poetry represented by the literary corpus of the Rgveda (ca. 165,000 tokens): characteristic choice of subject matter, usage of refrains, and the attribution of hymns to distinct poetic collectives. Analysis of 255 texts of 200 tokens showed that hymns on popular topics and where refrains were attested have a significantly higher rate of high-frequency content words and a lower ratio of once-occurring types. A higher TTR is observed in the hymns of specific family origin. Complexity of genre can be interpreted as a result of different discourse strategies of the poets. Overall, conservative mythological texts are characterized by regularity in word usage. Occurrence of content words, in the entire corpus, with lexemes denoting ‘deities’ on the one side and ‘nature’ on the other is accounted for by the factor of semantics, which deals with the structure of narrative.

Literary and Linguistic Computing - current issue: Dictionary generation for less-frequent language pairs using WordNet

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 04:31:55 +0000

Bilingual dictionaries are vital resources in many areas of natural language processing. Numerous methods of machine translation require bilingual dictionaries of large coverage, but less-frequent language pairs rarely have any digitalized resources of such kind. Since the need for these resources is increasing, but the human resources are scarce for less represented languages, efficient automatized methods are imperative. This article presents a fully automated, robust intermediate language-based bilingual dictionary generation method that uses the WordNet of the intermediate language to build a new bilingual dictionary. We propose the usage of WordNet in order to increase accuracy; we also introduce a bidirectional selection method with a flexible threshold to maximize recall. The evaluations showed 79% accuracy and 51% weighted recall, outperforming representative pivot language-based methods. A dictionary generated with this method will still need manual post-editing, but the improved recall and precision decrease the work of human correctors.

Literary and Linguistic Computing - current issue: An exercise in non-ideal authorship attribution: the mysterious Maria Ward

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 04:31:55 +0000

The dangers of computational approaches to authorship attribution in the absence of an adequate set of training texts for the claimant authors are well known. This study aims to show, however, that significant progress can be made even where conditions are quite problematic. We investigate a difficult authorship question involving three texts, ostensibly by three authors, each of whom wrote nothing else. Only one of the texts can be unquestionably ascribed to a known author, and this author has been suggested as the true author of one of the two remaining texts. We investigate these three texts, along with similar texts by other authors, using cluster analysis, Delta analysis, t-testing, and PCA. We also create simulations of our authorship problem using sets of three texts of known authorship by one, two, and three authors. We test these sets using correct and incorrect assumptions of authorial difference, and then compare the results with analyses of our three texts based on the same range of assumptions. By combining information from all of these tests, we achieve what we believe is a persuasive, if not conclusive, solution to a significant and long-standing question concerning the authorship of Maria Warda's violently anti-Mormon Female Life Among the Mormons. At the same time, we demonstrate methods for making progress in cases where conditions are less than ideal.

Literary and Linguistic Computing - current issue: Digital Images for the Information Professional.: Melissa M. Terras.

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 04:31:55 +0000

Literary and Linguistic Computing - current issue: Cyberculture, Cyborgs and Science Fiction: Consciousness and the Posthuman. * William S. Haney.

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 04:31:55 +0000

Grand Text Auto: Invisible GeoCities

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 03:18:23 +0000

GeoCities, founded in 1995, grew to become the third most visited site on the Web in 1999, when it was bought by Yahoo! for more than $3.5 billion. It offered free Web hosting in directories themed as different cities. Many people published their first page and first site on GeoCities. The Archiveteam has been working to save as much of it as possible; this wildly individual Web work won’t be completely lost to us as much of the pre-Wayback Web is. But at midnight Pacific Time, the plug will be pulled on this significant and populist piece of the Web. Here is, not an archive, but at least a peek at some of what will go dark.

DigitalKoans (Charles Bailey): Presentations from Throwing Open the Doors: Strategies and Implications for Open Access

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 03:05:23 +0000

Presentations by Tracy Mitrano and Heather Joseph from "Throwing Open the Doors: Strategies and Implications for Open Access" are now available from EDUCAUSE.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

n the past decade, the proliferation of Web 2.0 tools for sharing and creating knowledge, coupled with the creation of open-access journals, databases, and archives across the web, has begun to redefine the concept of "openness" in higher education. Advocates of the open-access campaign argue that free, virtual access to scholarly works and research advance scientific discovery and lead to faster knowledge dissemination and richer research collaborations, throwing open the doors that once restricted knowledge sharing and exploration. Critics of the movement have doubted its economic sustainability and raised concerns about its impact on peer review. Regardless, open access requires a new examination of campus copyright and publishing policy.

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DigitalKoans (Charles Bailey): Interim Head Librarian of Systems and Technical Services at St. Olaf College

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 03:04:11 +0000

The St. Olaf College Libraries are recruiting an Interim Head Librarian of Systems and Technical Services (full-time through December 31, 2010 with the possibility of an extension through May 31, 2011).

Here's an excerpt from the ad (position #0100299):

The Interim Head Librarian of Systems and Technical Services (a) plans, organizes, and oversees the libraries' acquisition, organization, and distribution of information (including books, serials, and electronic resources), and (b) serves as the point person for technology and digital initiatives in the libraries.

This position oversees the technical services department, including acquisitions, cataloging, serials, and digital initiatives. Serves with other departmental heads on the libraries' administrative council. Actively contributes to library-wide planning, policy-making, goal-setting and the development of new services and initiatives. Works with counterparts at Carleton College to manage and improve the shared library system. Supports the College Librarian in vetting new ideas, initiatives, and strategic plans.

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DigitalKoans (Charles Bailey): Boston University Launches Digital Common Institutional Repository

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 03:03:26 +0000

Boston University has launched its Digital Common institutional repository. In February, the BU University Council approved a Scholarship, Libraries, and Open Access Archiving Initiative.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Boston University now has a Digital Common—a place where research and other academic materials can be stored, shared, and discovered.

The Digital Common is an example of an institutional repository, and it is yours to use. The launch comes just in time to help celebrate Open Access Week. It already contains about a thousand scholarly works, and library staff are currently working with others, such as the Philosophy Department and the School of Public Health, to add more

.

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DigitalKoans (Charles Bailey): University of Michigan to Distribute Over 500,000 Digitized Books Using HP BookPrep POD Service

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 03:02:59 +0000

The University of Michigan Library will distribute over 500,000 rare and hard-to-find digitized books using HP BookPrep POD service.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

HP BookPrep — a cloud computing service that enables on-demand printing of books — brings new life to the traditional publishing model, making it possible to bring any book ever published back into print through an economical and sustainable service model.

As part of a growing movement to preserve and digitize historic content, major libraries are partnering with technology leaders to scan previously hard-to-find works using high-resolution photography. HP's process transforms these scans prior to printing by cleaning up some of the wear and tear that often is present in the originals.

HP BookPrep significantly drives down the cost of republishing books by eliminating the manual cleanup work that would otherwise be required. Based on imaging and printing technology from HP Labs, the company's central research arm, HP BookPrep automates the creation of high-quality, print-ready books from these raw book scans by sharpening text and images, improving alignment and coloration, and generating and adding covers.

People can now purchase high-quality print versions of public-domain, out-of-print books from the University of Michigan Library through HP BookPrep channels, including traditional and online retailers such as Amazon.com.

"People around the world still value reading books in print," said Andrew Bolwell, director, New Business Initiatives, HP. "HP BookPrep technology allows publishers to extend the life cycle of their books, removes the cost and waste burdens of maintaining inventory, and uses a full spectrum of technologies to deliver convenient access to consumers."

For publishers and content owners, HP BookPrep offers an opportunity to offer their full catalog of titles online, irrespective of demand. Because HP BookPrep is a web service that processes books as they are ordered, there is little upfront investment or risk as books are printed only after they are purchased, no matter the volume, eliminating the need for high carrying costs.

Consistently ranked as one of the top 10 academic research libraries in North America, the University of Michigan Library is a true repository for the human record. The print collection contains more than 7 million volumes, covering thousands of years of civilization. HP is collaborating with the university to eliminate barriers and increase access to content as part of an ongoing effort to make the concept of "out of print" a thing of the past.

"Our partnership with HP is a testament to the University of Michigan Library's commitment to increase public access to our library's collections and our continued innovative use of digitization," said Paul N. Courant, librarian and dean of libraries, University of Michigan. "We are excited that HP BookPrep can offer print distribution of the public domain works in our collection and help to provide broad access to works that have previously been hard to find outside the walls of our library."

The collaboration also builds upon HP's existing relationship with Applewood Books, a publisher of historical, Americana books. The company, which has been using HP BookPrep for the last year to republish hundreds of titles, also will distribute HP BookPrep's best-selling titles from the University of Michigan Library.

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DigitalKoans (Charles Bailey): Podcast: Open Access—Harvard's Success Story with Robert Darnton

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 03:01:00 +0000

JISC has released a podcast: Open Access—Harvard's Success Story with Robert Darnton.

Here's the announcement:

In October 2008 Harvard University in the US adopted an open access policy for all its research papers to be made available in their university repository, in an opt out basis. 12 months on, since the policy was adopted, JISC's Rebecca O'Brien speaks with Professor Robert Darnton, Director of Harvard University Library and trustee of New York Public Library and the Oxford University Press (USA), about the cultural change that is taking place at Harvard and the background to why professors at the university decided to share their knowledge in this way.

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Stephen Ramsay: Critical Code Studies

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 02:47:08 +0000

I was very pleased to be invited, a month or so ago, to be a contributor to the Critical Code Studies blog (maintained by Mark C. Marino at USC). In fact, I was so pleased that I actually wrote something, which, although it probably diminishes the overall quality of the discussion considerably, nonetheless expresses my hope that just as literary studies began (according to one pataphysical genealogy) with belles-lettres, so critical code studies might have its own tradition of bit-lettristic writing.

I have a lot more to say on that subject, actually, but it will have to wait. I am so very, very far from inbox zero.

The essay is called, “Tim Toady Bicarbonate.”

HASTAC blogs: Diana Taylor, "The Digital as Anti-Archive"?: A Response

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 01:51:45 +0000

Diana Taylor gave a very interesting talk at Duke this evening, part of the 2009 Provost's Lecture Series, "The Future of the Past, the Future of the Present: The Historical Record in the Digital Age." It was provocatively titled "The Digital as Anti-Archive?"

Gerry has

Geoffrey Rockwell: Wapedia Wiki: Stewart Butterfield

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 22:57:11 +0000

Apparently Stewart Butterfield, one of the co-founders of Flickr was a philosophy major. He got his BA in philosophy from the University of Victoria and an MA from Cambridge. Did philosophy make a difference? Hard to tell, but he gives a talk on How to Make a Fortune with your Liberal Arts Degree according to the Lavin Agency that represents him. The site quotes him to the effect, “You can always pick up how to figure out profit and loss, but it’s harder to pick up the other stuff on the fly.”

His co-founder and partner Caterina Fake, now working on Hunch, studied English and has a thoughtful blog here.

Just goes to show how useful the humanities are.

HASTAC blogs: Liveblog: Diana Taylor, Duke University Provost Lecture, "The Digital as Anti-Archive?" (10/26)

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 21:08:15 +0000

Hello! I'll be liveblogging Diana Taylor's address at Duke today, "The Digital as Anti-Archive?", part of the 2009 Provost Lecture series "The Future of the Past, the Future of the Present: The Historical Record in the Digital Age." Taylor is a professor in Spanish and Performance Studies at NYU.

HASTAC blogs: Delete or Save?

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 19:48:15 +0000

Last week, I heard an NPR interview with Viktor Mayer-Schonberger author of Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age. Anyone else catch the story or read the book? Mayer-Schonberger argues that because d

Craig Bellamy: What to do with 30 million books?

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 19:15:28 +0000

(Posted to that wonderful Digital Humanities list, Humanist). Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2009 18:22:57 +0100 From: Jockers Matthew Subject: Possible Text Mining Opportunity at Stanford Friends, As I'm sure many of you already know, Stanford has been closely involved with Google's book scanning project, and we (Stanford) are currently preparing a proposal for the creation of ...

Open Access News: U. Virginia to vote on OA mandate next month

noreply@blogger.com (Gavin Baker) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 19:20:59 +0000

Katherine Raichlen, Requiring the right rights, Cavalier Daily, October 26, 2009.

... [T]he University [of Virginia] Faculty Senate is considering a resolution that would require all faculty members to retain the rights to enter their academic articles into a publicly accessible University repository. The proposed policy — which will be voted on at the Senate’s Nov. 20 meeting — brings with it larger debates and concerns about open access and preservation issues. ...

The resolution applies only to scholarly articles and does not extend to books or works of art, [education professor Brian Pusser] said.

The proposed policy also includes a waiver process, which allows faculty to opt out if they cannot complete an addendum with the publisher, Pusser said. ...

Members of the task force are currently gathering information from faculty about the resolution, conducting dialogues with faculty and making presentations to various departments and schools around Grounds, Pusser said. ...

[Faculty Senate Chair Ann] Hamric said faculty members also may find out about the policy through the Faculty Senate Web site, which has posts of the resolution, a section of frequently asked questions and a letter from Madelyn Wessel, University associate general counsel and Senate Task Force member. ...

Some faculty members, however, have raised questions about the Senate’s copyright resolution because of the waiver process and whether the policy will create obstacles for faculty, Pusser said. ...

English Prof. David Vander Meulen, editor of the journal Studies in Bibliography, supports the resolution’s aims of “[disseminating] scholarship more widely, and [giving] authors greater rights to their own writing,” but he believes that “the current proposal ignores some key components in scholarly publishing,” according to an e-mail.

The exorbitant subscription fees for scientific, medical and technological journals were an important impetus for the proposal, Vander Meulen said, but different circumstances apply to other disciplines. ...

“If the University of Virginia fails to do this, it’s going to be a huge embarrassment to our faculty,” [media studies professor Siva Vaidhyanathan] said. “Faculties at every major research university in the country are considering this and almost all of them are going to pass it, and Harvard and MIT have led the way. We would be holding ourselves out as champions of the 18th century, if we hold back from this.” ...

Hamric ... was unwilling to speculate about the outcome of the vote, though she said she hopes the resolution passes.

“A number of our colleagues have given a great deal of time to understanding this issue,” she said, “and those are the people that are the most convinced that we need to do this and I take that seriously.” ...

See also our past posts on the proposed policy at UVa (1, 2).

Craig Bellamy: Open Access enhances scholarly communication by making the results of research electronically available

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 18:15:35 +0000

The rhetoric within this JISC promotion of Open Access is a little naive (ie. as if researchers haven't always communicated their research results), but still there is some good information here about JISC's initiatives. Also, check out the podcast by Harvard Historian Robert Darnton (link). Opening the knowledge base to all ...

Digital Arts & Humanities, King's College: Digital Strategies for Heritage (DISH)

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 17:31:23 +0000

Start: 08/12/2009 End: 10/12/2009 Timezone: Europe/Amsterdam We are proud to present the full conference programme of the conference 'Digital Strategies for Heritage' at www.dish2009.nl. DISH is a new bi-annual international conference on digital heritage and the opportunities it offers to cultural institutions. The first edition of DISH takes place in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, on 8-10 December 2009. [read more...] Digital Resources in the Humanities and Arts

Zotero: Zotero Trainer Workshop, Seattle, February 25-26

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:51:16 +0000

We are now accepting applications for the third Zotero trainers workshop, to be held February 25-26th at the University of Washington in Seattle. Participants in this workshop will develop a solid understanding of Zotero’s capabilities and how those capabilities can best meet their users’ needs. Beyond acquiring a detailed understanding of the program, participants will learn: best-practices for demo-ing and supporting Zotero at their institution; approaches for developing institution-specific documentation; and steps for migrating user data to and from other research management tools.

“For anyone considering working with Zotero – a game-changer, in my opinion – this workshop is essential. I not only expanded my knowledge of how Zotero works, but now I’m also able to teach our member libraries how, when, and why Zotero is an invaluable research management tool for the communities they serve.”- Jason Kucsma, Emerging Technologies Manager, Metropolitan New York Library Council

Whether or not you can attend the workshop, consider joining the Zotero evangelist Google group, which sustains an ongoing conversation between workshop participants and other Zotero trainers.

The cost to attend the workshop is $350, and due to the hands-on nature of these workshops, enrollment is limited. The Zotero team will be accepting applications through December 4th and applications will be considered according to the following criteria:

1. Your current or future role in representing Zotero on your campus

2. Your institution’s plans for, or interest in, adopting Zotero

3. Maximum representation of different institutions: we will most likely only accept one or two individuals from any single institution.

Application details and forms are located here, and applicants will receive confirmation of their acceptance by December 11th, 2009.

If you have any questions about the workshop please direct them to campus-reps{at}zotero.org

Craig Bellamy: Menzies Lecture by Professor Graeme Davison, Monash University, Australia

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:00:34 +0000

Professor Graeme Davidson, an Historian from Monash University in Australia, delivered the annual Menzies Lecture at King's College London on Tuesday Night (20th October). The lecture is one of the events from the Menzies Centre for Australian Studies at King's College. In his lecture titled 'Narrating the Nation' Graeme discussed ...

Craig Bellamy: Decoding Pasts, Building Futures (Digital Humanities lecture)

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:00:34 +0000

Inaugural Lecture by Richard Beacham, Charlotte Roueché & Harold Short Friday 23 October 2009 17.30, Edmond J Safra Theatre, Strand Campus We have chosen to give a joint inaugural presentation of our work, because we all work in densely collaborative areas, in a manner which is not necessarily familiar to Humanities scholars. We will be ...

Craig Bellamy: Clay Shirky on social media, communities, and Open Hack Day

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:00:34 +0000

New York University professor Clay Shirky, an expert on social media, kicked off Yahoo!'s Open Hack Day NYC 2009 with a thoughtful keynote on what motivates people to participate in online communities (Thanks to Leigh B. for the link)

Craig Bellamy: The Fourth Paradigm: Data-Intensive Scientific Discovery

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:00:34 +0000

'Presenting the first broad look at the rapidly emerging field of data-intensive science' Increasingly, scientific breakthroughs will be powered by advanced computing capabilities that help researchers manipulate and explore massive datasets. The speed at which any given scientific discipline advances will depend on how well its researchers collaborate with one another, and with ...