ACRL College & Researc Libraries News

College & Research Libraries News

Fast Facts

Ann Viles

→ Nonprint dwarfs printed information

According to a study by the School of Information Management and Systems at the University of California at Berkeley, printed documents comprise only .003% of the roughly 1.5 billion gigabytes of print, film, optical, and magnetic information produced yearly.

Peter Lyman and Hal R. Varian, "How Much Information?" University of California at Berkeley, http:// www.sims.berkeley.edu/how-much-info/. Dec. 1, 2000

→ Library software in escrow

Ex Libris has contracted with the State University of New York to place the source code for the shared online catalog of the 64 SUNY libraries in escrow. Should the contract cease for any reason, the source code and documentation will be available to the SUNY system. The five-year SUNYConnect project will produce a network catalog containing nearly 18 million records and providing system-wide access to nearly 50 percent of the serials and journals in the SUNY virtual library. A planned document delivery arrangement will make most nonelectronic materials in the combined catalog available to students and faculty on any SUNY campus within 48 hours.

Florence Olsen, "SUNY's Library-Software Contract Includes 'Ultimate Protection': Program Code," the Chronicle of Higher Education, Nov. 21, 2000. http://chronicle.com/daily/2000/11/2000112101t.htm, password required. Nov. 22, 2000

→ Library or Internet?

Seventy-five percent of adults who use the Internet also use public libraries according to an Urban Libraries Council study released on October 18. Users of both libraries and the Internet gave libraries higher scores for “ease of use, low cost (in monetary terms), availability of paper copy (versus availability of digital copy), accuracy of information, helpfulness of librarians (versus net helplines), and protection of user privacy.” The Internet, on the other hand, was rated higher for “ease of getting there, time to get there, availability (hours of access), expectation of finding what is sought, ability to act immediately on the information obtained, up-to-dateness of the information, fun, enjoyability of browsing, and the ability to work alone (versus being among people in the library).”

Urban Libraries Council, The Impacts of the Internet on Public Library Use: An Analysis of the Current Consumer Market for Library and Internet Services, October, 2000. http://www.urbanlibraries.org/pdfs/finaluic.pdf. Dec. 1, 2000

→ E-books standards

The Association of American Publishers (AAP) defines an e-book as “a Literary Work in the form of a Digital Object consisting of one or more standard Unique Identifiers, Metadata, and a Monographic body of content, intended to be published and accessed electronically. ” The AAP working with Andersen Consulting has released standards documents with recommendations for e-books in the areas of numbering, metadata, and digital rights management.

Association of American Publishers, "AAP Open Ebook Publishing Standards Initiative." http://www. publishers.org/home/ebookstudy.htm. Dec. 1, 2000

Ann Viles is coordinator of reference and instruction at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina, e-mail: vilesea@conrad.appstate.edu