http://lists.webjunction.org/currentcites/2010/cc10.21.1.html An annotated bibliography of the best of current library and information technology literature en-us roytennant@gmail.com roytennant@gmail.com http://lists.webjunction.org/currentcites/cites/index.cgi?cite=10-21-01-02.xml "The annual Horizon Report is a collaborative effort between the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) and the New Media Consortium (NMC). Each year, the report identifies and describes six areas of emerging technology likely to have a significant impact on teaching, learning, or creative expression in higher education within three adoption horizons: a year or less, two to three years, and four to five years. The areas of emerging technology cited for 2010 are: Time to adoption: One Year or Less: Mobile Computing and Open Content; Time to adoption: Two to Three Years: Electronic Books and Simple Augmented Reality; Time to adoption: Four to Five Years: Gesture-based Computing and Visual Data Analysis." Sorry, but I really couldn't improve on that. Now go get the report and see what they say about these technologies and their potential impacts on teaching and learning. http://lists.webjunction.org/currentcites/cites/index.cgi?cite=10-21-01-01.xml This 58-page report is the result of a 7-month study of students and the library at California State University, Fresno. Two anthropologists, a field project director, and a cadre of student enrolled in two ethnographic methods classes used a wide array of anthropological and ethnographic methods to study the students at Fresno State to discover ways to improve and increase library usage. The results are very insightful glimpses of the "taskscapes" for students at Fresno State and how the library facilities and serves fit or not. The report includes student drawings, photographs and even links to videos of student skits about the library, paper writing, and the stress of being a student. The excellent work of Delcore and his colleagues adds additional techniques to the growing toolkit of methodologies that library staff can use to better understand and serve their users. Moreover, it highlights some of the unique challenges faced by first generation college students and those from relatively low income families. The authors' practical recommendations for the Fresno library include facility, web design, outreach and service suggestions; some of which merit consideration by any academic library. http://lists.webjunction.org/currentcites/cites/index.cgi?cite=10-21-01-04.xml Kristin Eschenfelder and Grace Agnew contribute to the ongoing debate about the effort of cultural institutions to control digitized resources by conducting a survey of how institutions are controlling access to and use of digital collections. They found that the most commonly used tools are also among the oldest: resolution limits and authentication and authorization systems. They don't discuss the efficacy of the deployed systems to regulate user behavior, nor do they discuss the broader problem of whether institutions legally can or should be controlling access to and use of their collections. Kenneth D. Crews and Melissa A. Brown of Columbia University's Copyright Advisory Office have just released an introduction to this later issue in Control of Museum Art Images: The Reach and Limits of Copyright and Licensing, with more detailed studies promised for the future. http://lists.webjunction.org/currentcites/cites/index.cgi?cite=10-21-01-06.xml Holley reports on the experience of the Australian Newspaper project with regards to user tagging. The project also includes the ability to correct OCR'd text, but this article focuses on the tagging aspect. The article includes a great deal of data on user tagging over a 15-month period, as well as interesting insights into how users tag full text collections. Of particular interest to me was when the National Library of Australia did not impose any tagging rules or guidelines "they clearly developed their own unwritten rules." In summary, Holley writes, "The experience of the National Library of Australia shows that tagging is a good thing, users want it, and it adds more information to data. It costs little to nothing and is relatively easy to implement; therefore, more libraries and archives should just implement it across their entire collections." Highly recommended for anyone interested in tagging, or indeed any type of user-contributed content. http://lists.webjunction.org/currentcites/cites/index.cgi?cite=10-21-01-07.xml In this piece Kenney proposes nine "Principles to Guide Large-Scale Digitization of Special Collections,": "1) Distinct collections demand extra vigilance in digitization; 2) Libraries must respect any donor-imposed restrictions on the digitization and use of materials; 3) Libraries should seek the broadest possible user access to digitized content. This includes patrons of other libraries and unaffiliated researchers; 4) Libraries should receive copies of all digital files generated from their collections, with the option for complete local access to the files (to the extent that copyright law allows); 5) Any enhancements or improvements to the digitized content should be shared on a regular basis with the supplying library; 6) Restrictions on external access to copies of works digitized from a library's holding should be of limited duration; 7) Libraries should refrain from signing nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) as part of digitization negotiations; 8) Libraries should ensure that the confidentiality of users is protected in the vendor's products; 9) Libraries should refrain from charging fees or royalties for access to or non-commercial use of public domain materials held in their collections." It should be noted that Peter Hirtle of Cornell, and a Current Cites contributor, assisted in drafting these principles. http://lists.webjunction.org/currentcites/cites/index.cgi?cite=10-21-01-05.xml The goal was to make a significant impact on the learning experience of undergraduates at UMINN through new or revamped library initiatives. How they went about this, how they identified needs and prioritized solutions, makes up the heart of this article. They started with focus groups. They analyzed data. They brainstormed solutions. What they finally came up with, 12 top initiatives, was reduced to five through a final survey of students. While the process was admittedly elaborate, the authors conclude that is was also transparent, well publicized and ultimately almost 100% fully funded. http://lists.webjunction.org/currentcites/cites/index.cgi?cite=10-21-01-03.xml Pamela Samuelson, Richard M. Sherman Distinguished Professor of Law at the UC Berkeley School of Law, is a well-known critic of the highly controversial Google Book Settlement. In this preprint, Samuelson takes an in-depth look at the Google Book Settlement (GBS), including the Amended Settlement Agreement reached in November 2009. After an overview, Samuelson discusses the possible future impacts of the GBS if approved. A section on optimistic predictions is followed by a six-part section on pessimistic predictions, whose titles often include the word "nightmares." Of particular interest are the "Library and Academic Researcher Nightmares" and "Nightmares for Readers" subsections. A summary is followed by a new section on "Other Possible Futures for Books in Cyberspace," which includes subsections on what could happen if the GBS is rejected and on a proposed alternative publicly funded book mass digitization project. For another important recent critical perspective on the GBS, see Lawrence Lessig's The New Republic article "For the Love of Culture: Google, Copyright, and Our Future."