ACRL College & Research Libraries News

College & Research Libraries News

News from the Field

Stephanie Orphan

MIT launches DSpace

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has officially launched DSpace, a groundbreaking digital repository system, which will capture, store, distribute, and preserve the intellectual output of MIT’s faculty and research staff. DSpace, jointly designed by MIT and Hewlett-Packard Co., will transform how MIT distributes and archives the results of its research and serves as a model for other universities and institutions with similar needs.

The DSpace repository will initially address what was becoming a growing institutional need: how to collect, preserve, index, and distribute content that originates in complex digital formats. In addition, DSpace is designed with a flexible storage and retrieval architecture adaptable to a multitude of data formats and distinct research disciplines. MIT hopes to extend the scope of DSpace by offering and encouraging its adoption at other research-intensive institutions. Through the availability of open-source DSpace software, even small colleges will have the capability to am repositories with existing resources.

Innovative offers electronic ordering for EBSCO books

Libraries using the Innovative INNOPAC or Millennium systems can now send BISAC purchase orders for books directly to EBSCO Book Services through a new electronic ordering feature. The feature automatically sends the purchase orders to EBSCO via e-mail, where they are processed daily. EBSCO offers next-day delivery to most locations, as well as discounts to customers who purchase bulk orders of more than 50 copies of the same title.

Nunez Community College participating in digital library

Nunez Community College in Chalmette, Louisiana, is the only community college library selected to participate in a pilot project to create a digital library sponsored by LOUIS: the Louisiana Library Network. The LOUIS academic library group will use Sirsi’s Hyperion Digital Media Archive System to store, organize, and access nonbook holdings. The libraries will create thumbnail clips of documents, photographs, and audiovideo archival materials and make them available online with a goal of encouraging students and other researchers to explore the unique material available in archives across the state. Nunez Community College will be contributing selected pages from its Frank Fernandez Collection and clips from Irvan Perez’s Spanish decimas from St. Bernard Parish to the digital library project.

UNC-Chapel Hill undergraduate library reopens

Following 18 months of extensive renovations, the University of North Carolina (UNC)-Chapel Hill’s R. B. House Undergraduate Library has reopened. The 66,000-square-foot facility now includes wired and wireless access to the campus network throughout the building and features more than 100 public computer workstations, two collaboratories, a media lab for sound and video editing, two classrooms, two film viewing rooms, and a student lounge wired for laptop use. The renovation, which was completed on time and on budget, is considered by university administrators to be a model for all future campus projects.

JSTOR reports unauthorized use through open proxies

Nonprofit journal aggregator JSTOR has reported that unauthorized users illegally downloaded more than 51,000 articles from 11 JSTOR journals through unprotected proxy servers located within the domains of participating JSTOR sites last fall. The company has taken preemptive action by suspending access to JSTOR through specific IP addresses that have been identified as being set up without proper access restrictions.

These “open” proxies provide unrestricted access to any resource licensing using IP authentication. While migration to more robust authentication methods would eliminate the problem presented by open proxies, widespread adoption of these methods is not expected to occur for at least another year. Librarians and content providers are encouraged to alert others to the problems of unrestricted proxies and to discourage members of the campus community from installing such servers. JTOR plans to hold an information session immediately following its ALA participants meeting at the Midwinter Meeting, on Sunday, January 26, to further address the issue of open proxies.

OhioLink celebrates ten years

OHIOLink, one of the country’s leading academic library consortia, is celebrating its tenth anniversary. Since 1992, more than 26 million items were delivered to Ohio’s college students, faculty, and researchers. Items delivered include traditional books, electronic books, videotapes, online research and newspaper articles, and online literature, among others. Users downloaded the 6-millionth scholarly research journal article from the Electronic Journal Center (EJC), a service that went live four-and-ahalf years ago.

In addition to EJC, the OhioLINK program has added more than 90 core online research databases, linking many of those databases directly to the related full-text article, and introduced the Digital Media Center, a collection of nonprint media databases. OhioLINK is a consortium of academic libraries from 82 Ohio universities, colleges, community colleges, and the State Library of Ohio.

U. of Minnesota holds biennial training for librarians from underrepresented groups

The University of Minnesota (UM) Libraries hosted the third biennial “Training Institute for Early Career Librarians from Groups Underrepresented in the Profession” in fall 2002. Twenty-four librarians in their first three years of professional library employment attended the intense, weeklong training that combined sessions in leadership development and professional goal setting, workshops on professional skills, and the opportunity to build collegial relationships with librarians from across the United States who share similar professional and personal experiences.

Participants from both public and academic libraries attended the training. Among the academic institutions represented were Columbia University, University of Cincinnati, Yale University, and Jackson State University. The training was funded through a gift from the H. W.

Wilson Foundation, UM endowment funds, and $500 from each home institution.

Elsevier launches Library Connect

Elsevier Science has launched Library Connect, a broad initiative to inform librarians across all disciplines regarding electronic publishing and the digital library. The program offers an array of information and opportunities, including a quarterly newsletter, workshops, seminars, and partnership initiatives. In the future, Library Connect plans to offer awards and scholarships as well. The newsletter, Library Connect, will address industry and technical developments, through articles by guest writers plus writers from within the ranks of Elsevier Science. The first issue will be available at the ALA Midwinter Meeting.

Gallup offers weekly briefing service

The Gallup Organization, a leader in the measurement and analysis of public attitudes, opinions, and behavior, has launched the Gallup Poll Tuesday Briefing, a subscription-based news service that provides a weekly summary and analysis of the latest proprietary Gallup Poll findings. This marks the first time Gallup is directly offering its polling data and analysis to the general public for use as a news source. The briefing delivers original content articles focusing on topics relating to government, healthcare, religion, education, and finance. Subscribers can also access the Gallup Archives, which contain more than six decades of Gallup Poll’s public opinion surveys, poll results, and analysis. ■

Twenty-four early career librarians participated in the University of Minnesota's biennial training for librarians from underrepresented groups.