Happy New Year!! Have just learned that after four years as Chief Executive Officer of Swets, Arie Jongejan has decided to fulfill his plan to retire. This decision became effective December 31, 2008. Under Arie’s leadership, Swets was led successfully through a change in ownership and helped establish a positive relationship with the new shareholders and the Supervisory Board. The process to appoint a successor is underway. The Executive Board of Swets, under the leadership of Siebe van Elsloo, will continue to deliver plans for 2009.
www.swets.com/

And just learned from Ed Pentz in the CrossRef Quarterly (January 2009) that Amy Brand has left CrossRef to become Program Manager at the Harvard University Office of Scholarly Communications. Ed reminds us that Amy was with CrossRef for over seven years and played a major role in CrossRef’s success during its formative years. Ed also mentioned a couple of other additions to the CrossRef staff -- Kirsty Meddings joined at the end of October as Product Manager, focusing initially on CrossCheck, and Carol Meyer joined as Business Development and Product Manager in November. Also learned that the following individuals were elected to the Board for 3-year terms: Tim Ingoldsby, AIP, Linda Beebe, APA, Paul Reekie, CSIRO, Anthony Durniak, IEEE, Patricia Shaffer, Informs, and Rebecca Simon, University of California Press. AND, at the November meeting the board elected Bob Campbell as Chairman and President, Linda Beebe as Vice Chairman and Treasurer, Ed Pentz as Executive Director and Secretary and Lisa Hart as Assistant Secretary.
www.crossref.org/

Just picked this up from a post on liblicence by Bernie Sloan. "Interesting item in Nature's news section about the journal 'RNA
Biology' and Wikipedia: 'Anyone submitting to a section of the journal RNA Biology will, in the future, be required to also submit a Wikipedia page that summarizes the work. The journal will then peer review the page before publishing it in Wikipedia.'" Is this a new model for encyclopedias?
http://www.nature.com/news/2008/081216/full/news.2008.1312.html

Excelsior College, a distance-learning institution based in Albany, N.Y., with 33,000 students scattered across the country, has outsourced its library services to the Johns Hopkins University, where a team of four employees is dedicated to maintaining Excelsior’s virtual library and assisting its students with questions both online and over the phone. Word is that Johns Hopkins Library will get $1 million for this service. This is part of Johns Hopkins’ Entrepreneurial Library Program. Excelsior will pay its own licenses and subscriptions separately from Johns Hopkins’ contracts. See – “Library For Hire: Johns Hopkins U. Sells Services to an Online College,” by Caitlin Moran, Chronicle of Higher Education, December 10, 2008.
http://chronicle.com/free/2008/12/8310n.htm?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

Looking through some new books, I ran into this one from Libraries Unlimited – Defining Relevancy, Managing the New Academic Library, edited by Janet McNeil Hurlbert, 978-1-59158-419-3. $45) It’s about the challenges we are all facing regarding the college library today. One of the chapters especially caught my eye. It is by one of the Charleston Conference mentors – Susan Campbell (Director, York College Library, York, Pennsylvania). Her paper is called “The New 3 Rs: Revolution, Reorganization and Renovation.” In it Susan explains how Schmidt Library managed a reorganization that eliminated 13 clerical positions and created 11 new full-time and 2 new part-time positions as well as performing renovations in three and a half months with $3.5 million. There is much more useful material in this book. Divided into seven parts – Analyzing our Users: Making the Connection, the Integration of Form and Function: Buildinga and Services, Collaboration for Learning: Managing Information Literacy, Promoting the Libtrary: Competition and Collaboration, Integration of Staff, Services, and Assessment: What Is Needed? How Will we Know? Who Will Do It?, Connections for College Archives: Taking on New Missions, and finally Issues and Challenges for the future: A Bibliographic Essay – it contains a wealth of information useful toward the management of the college library today and in the future. Check it out!
http://www.lu.com

Talk about synchronicity. Was reading an article from John Cox yesterday for the Dec. 2008/January 2009 ATG and today the Chronicle of Higher Education (dated 5 December, 2008) has an article on the same topic! It’s about custom printing and the Espresso Book Machine which allows a book to be printed from a digital file in minutes. Several bookstores in Canada are using the technology (the machine costs a reported $144,000) including the University of Alberta Bookshop in Edmonton and McMaster University. Some issues encountered are copyright restrictions (a book currently in copyright cannot be reproduced, though the Canadian copyright “allows for more avenues for reproduction” than the U.S.) and, of course, servicing problems with the machine itself for which it can be difficult to find a repair person. Reportedly, the Alberta machine has been so successful that they are considering purchasing a second one. And the University of Michigan Library, part of the HathiTrust (reported in an earlier Rumors post in this space), purchased a machine from alumni funds in October! Do libraries have a role to play in this scenario? See -- “New Machines Reproduce Custom Books on Demand” by Lisa Guernsey. www.chronicle.com/weekly (password required)

Word is that Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has temporarily suspended acquisition of new manuscripts. Josef Blumenfeld, the vice president of communications, calls it a “freeze-lite.” He also added that manuscript acquisition editors would have to show “concrete evidence” of “market interest.” See – “Book Publisher Suspends New Acquisitions,” by Motoko Rich, The New York Times, November 24, 2008.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/25/books/25publish.html?_r=1

Just ran across this and thought it was worth sharing. Marquis Who’s Who has just published its 2009 edition of Who’s Who in America®, marking 110 years since its first publication in 1899. To commemorate this milestone, the publisher has decided to look back in its own history to include items of historical significance in this commemorative edition. This historical retrospective, appearing as a 16-page color section in the front of the new edition, includes: published cartoons and advertisements featuring Who’s Who in America® such as Doonesbury, Beetle Bailey, and a Cuban cigar advertisement from 1955; quotes about the book from such famous Americans as Mae West; a letter to the editor from former President Harry Truman, as well as one from magician Harry Houdini; and editorial reviews of the first edition from 1899. Also included are biographies of interesting, one-time listees William “Buffalo Bill” Cody, explorer Hiram Bingham, and the author of The King and I, Anna Leonowens. Marquis Who's Who CEO is James Pfister.
Http://www.marquiswhoswho.com/products/WAprodinfo.asp

Tune in to hear Scott Carlson and Warren Arbogast discuss the future of library buildings on the latest edition of Tech Therapy. Libraries are taking on more and more roles in the lives of students. See Chronicle of Higher Education, November 24, 2008, “Tech Therapy: The Library Building.” And also watch for our upcoming interview with Steve McKinzie. Library Director, Catawba College, Salisbury, NC, who will be talking about the design of his new library building.

http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/article/3481/tech-therapy-the-library-b...
http://www.lib.catawba.edu/

For those of us in academe and libraries the Digital Media and Learning initiative has just announced the online release of "Living and Learning With New Media." This three-year project and resulting report is a synthesis of the findings across 22 different case studies by 28 researchers and research collaborators. The MacArthur Foundation funded the project. Teenagers were observed and interviewed to study their interactions. From a report in the Chronicle of Higher education: “'Youth could benefit from educators being more open to forms of experimentation and social exploration that are generally not characteristic of educational institutions',” the authors write." There will be a book released by MIT Press next year and there are countless links on the Digital Youth Website. See -- Chronicle of Higher Education,November 20, 2008, "Report on Youth and New Media Pokes at Educational Institutions," by Lisa Guernsey.
http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/article/3475/report-on-youth-and-new-me... .
http://digitalyouth.ischool.berkeley.edu/

Was recently reading in the Chronicle of Higher Education (November 20, 2008) that Google is pulling the plug on its virtual world called Lively December 31, 2008. Google unveiled Lively in July 2008. The winner in the virtual world so far seems to be Second Life. I have been invited several times to join friends in Second Life, but, frankly, I don't have time to fool with the virtual world. The real world is enough for me and it includes plenty of virtual business. That's my minor rant. Would be interested in hearing your comments about virtual worlds.
http://www.chronicle.com/
http://www.lively.com/html/shutdown.html