Virginia Library Association Blog » Collection Management

Why wait? REGISTER TODAY!

sismith — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 13:29:06 +0000

Registration is open for the 2010 VLA Annual Conference to be held October 21-22 in Portsmouth, Va. A limited block of rooms at the Renaissance Portsmouth Hotel is available for VLA conference attendees at the VLA’s negotiated discount rate. Rooms are going fast, so please make your reservation soon.

Some good reasons to attend this year’s conference:

Terrific [...]

New VLA Logo Adopted

shelm — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 17:17:17 +0000

The new VLA logo was unveiled and adopted at the April 9th Council Meeting.

The new logo is available for download and use on all VLA publications, signage, web sites, etc. in various sizes, formats and color variations.

Special thanks go to Visa Varga and the Central Rappahannock Regional Library graphics staff for the beautiful work.

Disaster Planning Program – Register Now!

shelm — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 18:32:29 +0000

Preparing for the Unexpected:
DISASTER PLANNING FOR CULTURAL COLLECTIONS
Presented by the Conservation Center for Art & Historic Artifacts
(CCAHA)

March 24, 2010
Charlottesville, VA

Held at Ash Lawn-Highland, Home of President James Monroe

Sessions Include:
 Before Disaster Strikes: Assessing Vulnerability
 Crisis Communication
 Staff Training and Exercising the Plan
 Disaster Scenario Exercise
 Practical Decision-Making

Speakers:
Julie Page, Co-Coordinator, California Preservation Program (CPP) and
Western States & Territories Preservation Assistance Service (WESTPAS)
Michael Smith, PhD, Associate Professor of Communication, La Salle
University

The Academy of Certified Archivists (ACA), the professional certifying
organization for the archives field, will award 5 Accreditation
Recertification Credits (ARCs) to eligible Certified Archivists (CAs)
attending this program.

For more information and to register online, click here, or cut and

paste the following link:
http://guest.cvent.com/i.aspx?5S%2cM3%2c10ac9c28-3893-44dc-bdd4-c3d00…

If you have additional questions, contact CCAHA at 215-545-0613 or
pso@ccaha.org

Would you like to present at the 2010 Annual Conference?

shelm — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 19:22:38 +0000

The 2010 VLA Annual Conference will be held Oct. 21-22, 2010 at the Renaissance Portsmouth Hotel, Portsmouth VA.

Would you like to present at the 2010 Conference? If so, please complete the Concurrent Session Proposal Form (PDF) .

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION: MAY 1, 2010

85 Reasons to be Thankful for Librarians

shelm — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 13:25:17 +0000

1. Librarians take care of libraries, which are still invaluable today.
2. Not all information is on the internet.
3. Older books still hold great cultural significance.
4. Libraries are still repositories for some of the most valuable works of literature in the world.
5. Even with the internet, the library is still the best place to do research.
6. Girls with glasses can still rock the “sexy librarian” look.
7. “Sexy Librarian” is still a popular costume at Halloween.
8. You can’t exactly find periodicals like The New England Journal of Medicine in Barnes and Noble.
9. For that matter, looking at turn-of-the-century National Geographics is still pretty entertaining.
10. Colleges need something to remodel every so often.
11. The library is still the best meeting spot for college students working on group projects.
12. Libraries are where most colleges store some of their history (choir CDs, videos of athletic matches, etc.).
13. A library is one of the few places people can have free internet access.
14. This means some libraries even hold LAN parties during later hours.
15. Somebody has to help lazy people find what they want.
16. Even online collections of books usually connect directly to a library.
17. “Librarian” is still a better career choice for spinsters over “School Lunch Lady.”
18. Studies have shown libraries and librarians improve student test scores.
19. They also have been shown to improve students’ individual learning skills.
20. With their training in instructional design, librarians can help teachers find resources for their curriculum.
21. Librarians also help teachers to use a variety of media in the classroom.
22. Many libraries today offer enough DVDs to serve as a poor man’s Netflix or Blockbuster.
23. Librarians often put together special programs to get children to read early on.
24. While teaching children to use the library, librarians end up teaching them valuable problem solving skills.
25. They also teach children to use multiple resources to form their own original works.
26. If librarians were no longer around, kids wouldn’t understand the opening scene from Ghostbusters.
27. Librarians know a lot about proper citation skills, as well as ethical uses of information, in order to avoid plagiarism issues.
28. Libraries are still a cheaper place to make photocopies than FedEx Kinko’s.
29. Despite the advances in computer technology, a human will still find information better than a search engine.
30. Librarians can also find information better suited to the person who needs it.
31. A library is much MUCH more well cataloged and organized than the internet.
32. Libraries have much better quality control than the vast majority of websites.
33. Who else is going to learn the Dewey Decimal System? You?
34. Seriously though, no one wants to learn the Dewey Decimal System.
35. For that matter, who else is going to show you how to use that microfiche machine?
36. Experienced librarians often know exactly what resources students need for particular courses.
37. Many libraries collaborate and offer book exchange programs, offering users an almost limitless supply of books and media.
38. Librarians can help relieve some of the workload from teachers by helping students to understand information better.
39. Some engineering teams have already explored the idea of a fully digital library…and ended up designing a traditional library with some advanced technology.
40. The copyright costs for digitizing all literature would be astronomical without even factoring in distribution and storage.
41. Even without the costs, digitizing all books in existence would take hundreds of years at the current rate.
42. The internet still mostly only holds information from the past 15 or so years, compared with the hundreds of years of knowledge found in a library.
43. Even though libraries themselves may be losing attendance, their online archives and websites are still receiving plenty of visitors.
44. Despite the rising popularity of e-books, 80% of people surveyed say they still prefer paper books.
45. The experience of reading an actual book is being preserved by libraries.
46. Libraries provide one of the few places for anyone to find quiet area to just read or study.
47. Sometimes, but not always, libraries have free coffee.
48. Sometimes there are even free snacks.
49. Unlike the internet, libraries are careful that the information they contain is checked for usefulness before being included.
50. Also unlike the internet, libraries are much less influenced by corporate interests.
51. They are also less likely to be manipulated by individuals, like search engine optimizers.
52. Information on more specific topics can be much easier to find in libraries.
53. Digital or not, a library still needs a human staff to run it.
54. The resources of a library are well indexed and will always deliver reliable results (I.e. no “broken links”).
55. Many popular news publications still require subscriptions to view their content online, but are still available for free at the library.
56. Libraries provide free and abundant knowledge to everyone (a privilege people didn’t always have).
57. Not everyone can afford books, but everyone has access to the library.
58. Someone has to buy all those books that college professors write.
59. Public bathrooms in libraries are usually cleaner than most places.
60. A library can mold itself for the specific community it’s in, whereas websites usually try to bring in everyone.
61. At libraries, you can take practice qualifying tests for almost any profession.
62. You can always make suggestions to librarians for specific books you’d like to see.
63. Many libraries also display original works of art or even have separate galleries.
64. Some libraries also hold a limited number of free museum passes that anyone can use.
65. If you don’t have a computer, you can always use the ones in the library.
66. The same goes for certain premium software and special databases.
67. If your library offers wi-fi, it’s probably free.
68. Several libraries also offer programs that cater to senior citizens.
69. Believe it or not, studies show that libraries are good for their local economy, since they make their community for attractive to potential businesses and individuals.
70. Libraries are still a cornerstone for free speech and open access to information.
71. When dictators like Hitler and Mao Zedong set out to eliminate a country’s culture or history, they started by shutting down the public libraries.
72. A library still provides a neutral environment for the free exchange of ideas.
73. Public libraries are surprisingly cheap to maintain, but benefit everyone in the community.
74. If you’re a comic book lover, you can probably find plenty at your local library.
75. They might even have some of those expensive indie graphic novels available.
76. We’re still an incredibly long ways away from a paperless world.
77. You might as well use the library, since you’re already paying for it through taxes or tuition.
78. There’s less risk of getting carpal tunnel syndrome from reading books.
79. A library is a great excuse to get out of the house (seriously, why would anyone argue with you about it?).
80. Books are very portable and never need recharging.
81. With the economy these days, going to the library is a great source of free entertainment.
82. You can “try before you buy” any number of books without spending a dime.
83. Some libraries even have bookmobiles or mailing programs that deliver books right to you.
84. Studies have repeatedly shown that reading improves your basic vocabulary and just generally makes you smarter.
85. Regardless of what form a library takes, a librarian will always be ready to guide you to the information you need.

Reposted from: http://www.zencollegelife.com/2009/12/29/85-reasons-to-be-thankful-for-librarians/

The Fight over the Google of All Libraries: A Wired.com FAQ

shelm — Sat, 02 May 2009 16:53:22 +0000

The Google Book Search Settlement has been much in the news recently, with the Internet Archive, Philip K. Dick’s heirs, consumer groups and Microsoft registering their objections to the search giant’s agreement with authors and publishers. And now Justice Department anti-trust lawyers are meeting with Google about the settlement, raising the possibility of a full-blown anti-trust court showdown between the government and the world’s biggest search and advertising company.

Google Books lets users search and read portions of millions of books.

It’s a complicated story combining copyright law, anti-trust issues and the odd problem of orphan books.

It’s also the story of one company’s attempt to create the largest and most comprehensive library in the history of the world.

Here’s Wired.com’s guide through the thicket of the Google Book Search Settlement.

Google is a search engine, right? What do words printed on dead trees have to do with it?
Google claims its mission is to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” If that’s your goal, then a library full of books makes you salivate in hunger for the knowledge held inside. So in partnership with major university libraries, Google began scanning and digitizing millions of books in 2002, from ones like Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales that are no longer copyrighted to the Harry Potter series to books whose authors and publishers cannot be located. The idea is simple, and audacious. Make the library of all libraries by converting every book ever published into an e-book that can be indexed, searched, read — and sold — online.

That’s cool! Where can I find this?
Go to Google Book Search, for one. You might also see book snippets in Google’s Web search results.

How many books are in there already?
Google has scanned more than 7 million books as of April 2009.

Can I download or buy old books through Google right now?
Yes and no. Google lets you download any book it has scanned that is not in copyright in the U.S. anymore – books that have fallen into the public domain. For other books, it shows up to 20 percent of the text, and usually includes links to places to buy it online.

What about new books? Are they included?
Most are, but that’s through Google’s Partner project that lets publishers and authors decide how much or how little of their books go into Google’s index, as well as letting them get a portion of the money from ads shown next to their book pages.

How did Google get away with scanning 7 million library books?
Well, there’s no problem with scanning millions of public domain books so long as you have the cash, cool technology and cachet to convince some of the world’s best libraries to work with you. As for in-copyright books, Google says it has the right to scan and index them, and show snippets online, under the Fair Use doctrine, which carves out exceptions to copyright holders’ rights. Being a massive company, mostly loved by users, also helps.

So could I go into the library and legally rip every music CD and video they have, and put snippets of them online, under the Fair Use doctrine?
That’s an interesting question. How good is your lawyer and how high is your bank balance?

Then why did the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers sue Google in 2005?
Well, once they saw Google using snippets of the books in search results and making money of it, they decided they deserved some of it. After all, they wrote the books.

Why did Google settle in 2007 if it has the right to do this? Especially since they have to pay $125 million in lawyer fees and past royalties?
Well, the settlement gives Google the legal cover to digitize all books written to date that are still in copyright. For books that are copyrighted but out-of-print, Google gets to show 20% of the book online and sell digital copies of it, keeping 37 percent. For books in-print and copyrighted, Google gets the right to scan the books and use them for research, and can do more with permission.

What about anthologies or photos licensed for use in a book? How does that work?
Well, that’s complicated. That’s partially why the agreement is 334 pages long.

Why should I care about the settlement at all?
Google. Monopoly. World’s Greatest Library. You do like books, don’t you?

Who manages authors and publishers’ rights if Google is going to be advertising next to book pages and selling books?
The newly-created Book Rights Registry is in charge of finding rights holders, collecting and disbursing payouts, setting prices and negotiating other deals. It’s not unlike the ASCAP system that collects royalties for song writers, musicians and publishers.

What about libraries?
Every library in the country will get one free subscription for one computer that will let users read and print any page from the full text of all the books in Google’s catalog, excluding books still in-print. Beyond that, libraries and institutions can order additional subscriptions. The demand is likely to be high. Very high.

What is an author’s role in all this?
Rights holders can go to Book Rights Registry’s database and choose whether to let Google include their works, sell them online, and show snippets and ads. They can also opt-out and reserve the right to negotiate their own terms or sue Google later if Google includes their works.

How can Google get a monopoly? Can’t the Book Registry negotiate with other entities that want to do the same thing?
Yes, but only for those authors it can speak for – in other words, the known authors of copyrighted books.

Is the opposition to the settlement all about the so-called orphans?
Yes. There are more orphans than in a Dickens novel. Google won’t say how many there are. But UC Berkeley Professor Pamela Samuelson estimates that 70 percent of books that are still in copyright have rights holders that can’t be found.

What’s the problem with orphans?
Copyright infringement can be expensive – up to $150,000 per violation. So if you scan an old book and start selling copies of it, or displaying chunks of it on the web, and the orphan’s father shows up one day waving a paternity test in your direction, you could face a mean copyright infringement suit. Unless you are Google: Since all U.S. book copyright holders are now plaintiffs in the lawsuit, Google gets liability protection from authors who abandoned their books by not registering in its books database. If they show up later, all they can do is collect a little cash, change their book price or ask Google to stop selling the book.

Could Google end up with the most comprehensive online library in the world? Won’t libraries place thousands of subscriptions due to overwhelming demand? And since there’s only one vendor (Google) and the Book Registry will set the price, won’t the price be incredibly high? Or at least climb that way over time?
Bingo.

Why can’t Amazon or Yahoo or Microsoft go to the Book Registry and get an orphans waiver like Google is getting?
The registry can set rates and negotiate contracts for all authors, unless they opt-out. But signing away unknown people’s rights to sue? Only a judge in a class-action lawsuit (or Congress) can do that.

If another company wants to digitize, display and use orphan works without the Sword of Damocles hanging over its head, it has to start digitizing without permission, get sued by a reasonable plaintiff and the go through this settlement process again?
Exactly.

That’s ridiculous. Isn’t there a better solution to the orphan works problem?
Yes. For one, Congress could step up and pass a law about orphan works. But the last time Congress passed a substantial law about the length of copyrights it extended them for 20 more years — keeping more and more books from reaching the public domain. Don’t expect much help here.

Is a lot of money at stake?
If you think all the value in digitizing the world’s knowledge will come from selling out-of-print books as e-books for an iPhone, you’re not thinking like Google is. Think of all the subscriptions that universities and colleges and high schools and corporations will need to buy. Think of how search could be improved if you can test your algorithms on a huge digitized swath of the world’s knowledge. Think of the data that could be mined from that index, or how a question-and-answer service resembling artificial intelligence could be created. Google “the Singularity.” Or better Google Book Search “The Singularity”.

Why does the Justice Department getting involved? Why I am reading that it is investigating?
Remember last fall when the Justice Department was hours from filing an anti-trust lawsuit against Google for its planned ad partnership with Yahoo? That made it very clear that Justice Department considers Google to either be a monopoly, or be very close to being one – at least as far as search advertising is concerned. So when outside groups wrote the Justice Department with concerns about Book Search, it’s not surprising that lawyers there started sniffing around the settlement. Given that Google admits it has met with DoJ lawyers about the settlement and has to do so again, it’s clear this is more than just a passing interest for DoJ lawyers, who could make big names for themselves in the legal world for taking on the search-and-advertising giant.

When does all this end and I get to start browsing the library of the future and buying out-of-print books?
Authors and publishers have until September 4 to opt-out or make their initial choice about what Google can or can’t do with their work. The federal court’s final hearing on the fairness of the settlement comes a month later, on October 7. Then the judge has to rule, which could take months. In the best case scenario for Google, it will have something resembling the library of the future online sometime in 2010, but given the number of lawyers eying this deal and the potential amount of money at issue, one can be pretty sure the legal battle will drag out far into the 2010s.

Credit: The Fight over the Google of All Libraries: A Wired.com FAQ
By Ryan Singel April 30, 2009 | 7:34 pm |

VLA Region V Committee Youtube Channel Updated

admin — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 17:32:08 +0000

Surf over to VLA Region V Committee’s Youtube Channel to see updates from the past year.

Brownbag on Music Librarianship with Steven Gerber, George Mason University Libraries.
Brownbag on Gaming in Libraries with Chuck Gray, Central Rappahannock Library.
Welcome to VLA presentation from the 2008 VLA Annual Conference. VLA Region V developed this session in response to a recommendation by the VLA Membership Committee. It is presented by Lynda Baer (CRRL), Karim Khan (Loudoun County Public Library), Carolyn Labbé
(Fairfax County Public Library), and Jessica Schwab (Prince William County Public Libraries).

The videos are broken into parts because Youtube has duration limits.

Gaming in Libraries: VLA Region V Brownbag

admin — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 20:07:14 +0000

Join Chuck Gray of Central Rappahannock Regional Library for a talk about gaming culture and how it can be incorporated into library programs. More than simply playing video games, how do lilbrary staff use gaming and its narratives, characters, ideas, and concepts to inspire creativity in children and teens. A single story line from a game might inspire fan fiction, video mashups, original music; a teen might have an idea for a story that could be made into a video game using a number of free game-building tools. This talk explores a number of subcultures surround gaming that can be taken advantage of in libraries. Bring a lunch, drop in, and get your game on.

Wednesday February 4, 2009
12 Noon-1 PM
2nd Floor Instruction Room
Johnston Center Library
George Mason Univeristy
Fairfax VA 22030

Directions:

http://library.gmu.edu/libinfo/hours.html

Please enter the Johnston Center Library from the first floor and go up the stairs inside the library to access the 2nd Floor Instruction Room.

Contact Karim Khan (karim.khan@loudoun.gov) or Irene Osterman (iosterman@nvcc.edu) for further information.

VLA Region V Brownbag on Web 2.0

admin — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 15:54:24 +0000

VLA Region V Committee is proud to host a brown bag presentation: Applications and Implications of Web 2.0 Tool Integration for Higher Education and Public Libraries

When: Wednesday, October 1, 12 noon- 1 PM

Where: George Mason University Fairfax Campus, Johnson Center Library, 2nd Floor (but you must enter through the first floor). Directions and Parking Info.

This presentation will provide an engaging overview of Web 2.0 social technologies and will explore the integration of these tools for Higher Education and Public Libraries through examples and audience discussion. Blogs, wikis, Flickr, YouTube, RSS Feed readers and iTunes U will be discussed. This presentation will be recorded for future viewing on the VLA website.

Who: Rick Reo our presenter, is an Instructional Designer with GMU’s Division of Instructional Technology. For the past eight years he has provided a broad range of support for faculty, staff, and student use of instructional technologies at the Prince William campus.

If interested in attending this Brown Bag: Please RSVP to Heather Hannan: hhannan@gmu.edu

ebrary Honors National Library Week, Offers Complimentary Access to Library Science E-books

shelm — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 12:55:54 +0000

PALO ALTO, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–In support of National Library Week, April 13 to 19, 2008, ebrary®, a leading provider of e-content services and technology, today announced that it will provide librarians as well as students and faculty in library science and related programs with complimentary access to its Library Center for one year.

Subsidized by ebrary, the Library Center includes more than 85 full-text e-books covering topics such as digital library development, general collection development, and the history of libraries and librarianship, as well as illustrated guides from the Library of Congress. Contributing publishers include Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Idea Group, Inc., Greenwood Publishing Group, Library of Congress, and MIT Press.

To receive complimentary access, students, faculty, and librarians may register at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=iLchAc260S528_2botn4tcig_3d_3d.

“ebrary is dedicated to serving the needs of the library community, including the next generation of librarians,” said Christopher Warnock, CEO of ebrary. “We are pleased to participate in National Library Week by providing access to a selection of relevant e-books that we hope will provide additional knowledge that students, faculty, and librarians can use today as well as in the future.”

Key features and benefits of the Library Center include the following:

Simultaneous, multi-user access – any time, anywhere.
The ebrary Reader® provides the ebrary system with all of its rich functionality and streams documents, eliminating cumbersome document downloads.
ebrary InfoTools® provides contextual linking to multiple online resources.
Multiple search options including advanced and simple, by full-text, keyword, subject or author. ebrary also supports Boolean, proximity, and federated search.
Personal bookshelves that automatically store links to bookmarks, highlights, and notes, providing an archive of research.
Automatic citations when text is printed or copied and pasted into Word or any text application. Citations include an automatic URL hyperlink back to the source.
Highlighting and annotating.
Multiple ways to navigate throughout a document or the entire selection.

About ebrary (www.ebrary.com)

ebrary® is a leading provider of e-content services and technology. The company helps libraries, publishers, and other organizations disseminate valuable information to end users, while improving their research and document interaction.

The company has developed a flexible e-content platform, which customers may use in a number of different, integrated capacities: ebrary customers may purchase or subscribe to e-books and other content under a variety of pricing and access models, and they may license the ebrary platform to distribute, sell, and market their own content online. All options are delivered using a customizable interface and include the ebrary Reader™ with InfoTools™ software, which enable integration with other resources to provide an economical and efficient way to utilize information.

ebrary currently offers a growing selection of more than 170,000 e-books and other titles from more than 290 leading publishers and aggregators.

Founded in 1999, ebrary is privately held and is headquartered in Palo Alto, CA.

Contacts
Wagner Communications
Tish Wagner, 707-963-8935
tish.wagner@ebrary.com