Lots of Rumors out there but only have time for a few right now. Just learned that the creative, hard-working, and entrepreneurial Stanley Wilder will be the new University Librarian at Adkins Library, UNC-Charlotte, effective August 1. As we all know, Stanley has an extensive career in academic research and is a thought leader for the profession. Hear! Hear! Congratulations, Stanley!

Rumors have been flying about the Google Books Settlement. Hard to keep them straight. Seems that the Justice Department has begun an inquiry into the antitrust implications of Google's Book Search Service settlement.
See – “Justice Dept. Opens Antitrust Inquiry Into Google Books Deal," by Miguel Helft, New York Times, April 29, 2009;
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/29/technology/internet/29google.html?_r=1...
Also, “Google Book-Search Pact Draws Antitrust Scrutiny,” http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124095639971465549.html (subscription reqd)

And recently posted info on Liblicense courtesy of Robert C. Richards, news that the opt-out deadline and the deadlines for objectors and the amici to submit their views to the court have been extended to September 4, 2009.
http://home.comcast.net/~richards1000/ExtensionOrder4-28-09.pdf

The final fairness hearing has been rescheduled for October 7,
2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/29/technology/internet/29google.html

And this courtesy of Charles W. Bailey, Jr., writing on Liblicense: “Seven ARL libraries are facing major planned or potential budget cuts: Cornell University Library, Emory University Libraries, MIT Libraries, UCLA Libraries, University of Tennessee Libraries, University of Washington Libraries, and Yale University Library. These examples suggest that significant budget cuts may be widespread in ARL libraries."
http://tinyurl.com/chgumq

Article in Financial Times (Apri 13, 2009) about a new eBook initiative which is billed as " 'i-Tunes-style' service to download digital books ... in preparation to take on ... Amazon and Google." Publishing Technology is the company behind this initiative and they are focusing on large publishers rather than on end users. The launch is set for this summer. Trials have been started with Random House, HarperCollins, and Penguin all owned by Pearson which also owns the Financial Times. We may remember that "Publishing Technology was created out of Vista International's reverse acquisition of Ingenta two years ago." There's little specifics in this article but it signals a venture to watch.
See -- "New chapter begins for book downloads," by Philip Stafford.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/71f1ea4e-2770-11de-9b77-00144feabdc0.html

I am heading to Oxford England for a meeting and will be back on Saturday the 18 April.
ATG April is completed and is "in press." HOORAY! Happy religious holidays to you and yours.

Just learned that Annie Callanan, currently Bowker President and CEO, has been named ProQuest Chief Operating Officer. In her new role, Ms. Callanan will report to ProQuest CEO Marty Kahn and will manage the day-to-day operations for ProQuest’s publishing, marketing, customer care, and content operations. She will also continue to have overall responsibility for Bowker. “Annie is an energetic and effective leader with an extraordinary track-record of success, and I’m delighted to have her join our team,” said Mr. Kahn. “ProQuest and Bowker share similar goals and challenges in redefining information discovery. This important step benefits both companies by combining talent within these two growing, innovative organizations.” While the management structures will align at ProQuest and Bowker, the companies’ customer-facing operations and product initiatives will continue uninterrupted. Since coming to Bowker as President and CEO in 2006, Annie Callanan has successfully advanced the development, marketing, and distribution of information technology solutions to libraries, publishers, and educators. During her three years with Bowker she expanded the company’s services, acquired Medialab — developer of Aquabrowser — and more recently, integrated LibraryThing into the Bowker product mix. Before joining Bowker, Ms. Callanan was executive vice president of Advanstar Communications’ Life Sciences Group, a healthcare publisher known for leading clinical and industry journals, professional conferences, continuing education and Web services. Earlier, she was senior vice president of CMP Media, where she was responsible for the operations of such well-known media brands as Information Week and Network Computing magazines and the PC EXPO trade show. She also previously oversaw the publishing, trade show and electronic publishing divisions for Miller Freeman, where she marketed information technology to businesses in the education and financial services sectors. Ms. Callanan holds BA and BFA degrees in English and art history from Fairleigh Dickinson University and an MBA in finance from New York University.
http://www.proquest.com
http://www.cambridgeinformationgroup.com

According to Liblicense, Peter Suber’s blog, and the Guardian, Springer Science and Business Media is believed to be preparing the business for sale. Candover and Cinven, are the private equity companies that own Springer and, reportedly, buyers have until the end of next week to register their interest. According to Candover, Springer is worth 1.65 billion Euros. Springer is more stable, apparently since it does not rely heavily on advertising revenue as many other publishers. Springer, which has published many leading lights in science (Marie Curie, Albert Einstein to mention a few) was founded by Julius Springer in 1842.
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2009/03/springer-on-block.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/mar/26/publisher-springer-put-up-fo...
http://www.cinven.com
http://www.candoverinvestments.com
http://www.library.yale.edu/~llicense/index.shtml

Librarians are going to be essential persons in the 21st century. You heard it here! Personal librarians will replace personal trainers as essential to your health. Just read an interesting article in Inside Higher Education (3/23/2009) entitled “Knowledge Overload,” by Ken Coates who says that with the “deluge of information” that now confronts us (specifically students, scholars, librarians and the general public), we have by necessity become more focused and “reading less than in the past.” Faculty, in particular, have become more interested in scholarly productivity (read publication of articles) than in keeping up with the current literature that is available. This is a thoughtful article with comments from many of the people we know – Sandy Thatcher (Penn State Univ Press), Toby Green (OECD), Sally Morris (Morris Consulting), among others. You need to read this!
http://www.insidehigheredcom/views/2009/03/23/coates

Stephen M. Smith has been appointed Executive Vice President, Chief Operating Officer of John Wiley & Sons, effective May 1, 2009. Mr. Smith will be responsible for the overall direction and leadership of Wiley’s global publishing businesses. The announcement was made by William J. Pesce, President and Chief Executive Officer, John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Mr. Smith will continue to report to Mr. Pesce. Eric Swanson, Senior Vice President, Scientific ,Technical, Medical and Scholarly; Stephen Kippur, Executive Vice President and President, Professional/Trade; and Bonnie Lieberman, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Higher Education, will report to Mr. Smith. Mr. Smith is relocating to Wiley’s global headquarters in Hoboken, NJ, from Chichester, UK, where he is currently based as Senior Vice President, International Development, with responsibility for Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Australia. Mr. Smith joined Wiley in 1992 as Vice President, Wiley Asia. In 1995, he was promoted to the new position of Vice President, International Development. He became Senior Vice President, International Development in 1996, when he assumed corporate responsibility for Wiley Australia. In May 2000, Wiley’s Professional/Trade business in Europe was added to his responsibilities. In 2006, Mr. Smith became Chief Operating Officer of Wiley’s UK business. He was appointed Senior Vice President, Wiley Europe in 2007, while continuing his role in Asia and Australia. Prior to joining Wiley, Mr. Smith was President of Simon & Schuster’s UK Academic and Professional Group, with management responsibility for the European operations of Simon & Schuster and Prentice Hall. During his time with Simon & Schuster, he also spent two years in the Middle East and six years as Managing Director of the Asian subsidiary in Singapore. He received his B.S. from Oxford Brookes University. He has been an active participant in industry campaigns to combat copyright infringement around the world.
http://www.wiley.com/

Did you know that Indie book publishing is another term for “self publishing” or independent publishing? I didn’t and so I was intrigued when I got a press release titled “Indie Book Publishing Provides Professionals the Edge of Putting their Expertise into Book Format.” The concept is using the book as a business card which has helped many business people with marketing. Instead of arriving with all sorts of marketing materials, the person with the book as business card arrives with a book written in his or her field of expertise. Hmmm … pretty interesting.
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2009/03/prweb2249394.htm

Reading in the Chronicle of Higher Education the other day about the role of the traditional humanities journal in the publication process. Apparently, at the Conference of Historical Journals at the American Historical Asociation’s annual meeting in January, an alarm was sounded. Are humanities journals receiving fewer unsolicited manuscripts than they once did? The move by many smaller journals to be carried by aggregator databases that allow readers to access the content article by article is threatening the identity of the journal as a collection of papers on a focused topic. This has been alluded to more than once at the Charleston Conference and many other venues.
“Humanities Journals Confront Identity Crisis,” by Jennifer Howard, Chronicle of Higher Education, March 27, 2009.
http://chronicle.com/

" Books as history: the importance of books beyond their texts," by David Pearson. British Library/Oak Knoll, 2008. 208p bibl index; ISBN 9781584562337, $49.95. Reviewed in April 2009 CHOICE.

What a refreshing book! With all the rush to digital that is taking place. this book looks at the book as history and artifact. David Pearson is Director of the University of London Research Library Services and is a respected scholar in the field of eBook history. Lorcan Dempsey also gives this book a heads up on his blog. So -- I am ordering this book and recommend it to you. We are librarians, aren't we?
http://www.orweblog.oclc.org/archives/001789.html
http://www.oakknoll.com
http://www.cro2.org

The University of Michigan Press has just announced that it will shift its scholarly publishing from print books to digital editions within two years. The Press publishes approximately 60 books and it is expected that 50 of the 60 books will be produced digitally only. Of course, print on demand will still be available for those who want a printed book. "We will certainly be able to publish books that would not have survived economic tests," says Phil Pochoda, Director of the Press. "And we'll be able to give all of our books much broader distribution."
See "Farewell to the Printed Monograph," by Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Education, March 23, 2009.
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/03/23/michigan

More about the University of Michigan Press. The Press will be restructured as a unit under the dean of libraries, Paul N. Courant. Pochoda the Director of the Press, is relieved that this is taking place. "It removes the bottom line on a book-by-book basis," he said. See "U. of Michigan Press Reorganizes as a Unit of the Library," by Jennifer Howard.
http://www.chronicle.com/daily/2009/03/1421on.htm

And, a report in the Chronicle of Higher Education regarding the recent ACRL conference. Publishers are definitely getting the message that they need to hold down (or freeze) their price increases for next year.
See "Publishers Face Pressure From Libraries to Freeze Prices and Cut Deals," by Jennifer Howard, Chronicle of Higher Education, March 27, 2009.
http://www.chronicle.vom/cgi-bin/printable.cgi?article+http//chronicle...