Book Review: Digital Rights Management: The Librarian\u27s Guide

Over the past decade, the dramatic proliferation of technologies in the expanding digital world has transformed the way we operate and interact with various forms of information. Enhanced access to digital information has empowered both individuals and libraries. People have gained access to such digital media as streaming audio and video, DVDs, e-books, e-journals, research subscription databases, websites, and other sources of digital information. This enhanced access has enabled libraries to deliver more effective and scalable services for their users in the digital environment. These digital movements and technological advances, including a drastic increase of Web-based tools, make sharing information easy and inexpensive

Intellectual property: Everything the digital-age librarian needs to know [book review]

Book review of Intellectual property: Everything the digital-age librarian needs to know by Timothy Lee Wherry

Librarian role in research library services in Indonesian Institute of Sciences

Introduction.In a research library, researchers are the main players, while . librarians should be the partners in conducting research even though this combination rarely happens. In general, librarians are only involved in a part of research activities as their research assistants to carry out some administrative stuffs, such as distributing questionnaires and sending invitation letters, instead of designing a research plan and/or somequestionnaires or doing data analyses.Data Collection Method. We interviewed librarians in the Center for Political Studies, Research Center for Economic, Center for Science and Technology Development, and Center for Scientific Documentation and Information of Indonesian Institute of Sciences, Jakarta.Data Analyses. Data were analyzed using qualitative analysis methods, through the direct interview, where data categorized by using open coding.Results and Discussions.The results stated that 86.7% of respondents had ever been involved in research activities carried out by the research center in the same or different units. From that result, 53.3% respondents ever engaged research activities up to 5 times in a year. In the other hands, librarians who answer conduct independent research and are often involved in the research are 13% respondents. Some recommendations figured out from this research are (1) a librarian could be a  plagiarism examiner for a research proposal, (2) a librarian must be literated in information technologies, (3) a librarian should be involved in examining a literature review of the proposal and writing the manuscripts.Conclusions.The role of a librarian is not just as a research assistant or a data collector but as a research buddy who could help addressing some documentative problems

Digital archives at MU : the J-School and beyond

As the J-School prepares to celebrate its centenary in 2008, it is also heading toward a digital crossroads. The new Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute, with its mandate to explore new frontiers of news gathering in the Digital Age, will train the next generation of journalists in a host of technologies that are already wreaking fundamental changes in the profession. Even as the very existence of traditional newspapers is increasingly called into question, the University of Missouri is poised to produce visionary leaders and practitioners who will guide journalism and publishing through the current technological upheaval into the next hundred years. Web pages, video, RSS feeds, pod- and videocasts, and delivery devices yet to be invented will be there to challenge and inspire students and faculty in their state-of-the-art new facility. And where will all this multimedia journalism end up? News archives, famously the in-box for the first draft of history, must also rise to the requirements of this flood of digital output. Unfortunately, the fragility of digital information in any form is a threatening paradigm in its own right. There are no assurances that any digital content produced tonight by any newspaper will survive in its database or on its CD-ROM disks for ten or fifteen years, let alone the next hundred. The complexity of current media (revisit the list above: web pages, video, RSS feeds, pod- and videocasts and those media still to be invented) only work to shorten that time frame. For all the technological wonders the J-School will be producing, the legacy of that material is at best unknown, and at worst, vanished. I hope this short statement of the seriousness of digital preservation issues will set the stage for the rest of this report

The iPhone and the DMCA: Locking the Hands of Consumers

On August 24, 2007, less than two months after its initial release for sale, the Apple iPhone was unlocked, untethering the phones from the AT&T cellular network. Because AT&T has exclusive rights to provide coverage for the iPhone until the year 2010, hackers and computer enthusiasts worked feverishly to be the first to use the iPhone on a network other than AT&T. Although the practice of cell phone unlocking has been occurring for years, the tremendous public interest surrounding the launch of the iPhone focused attention on the issue like never before. Wireless carriers can use software locks, hardware locks, or both to disable a handset from being used on any network except the one for which it was purchased. Most handset makers, such as Motorola and Nokia, manufacture almost identical versions of their phones for different networks, making, for example, a new T-Mobile customer purchase a different version of the same phone he used on the AT&T network. As a result, most customers choose phones based on the network they plan to use. The practice of linking a specific cell phone handset to a particular network did not, of course, originate with Apple and AT&T. T-Mobile, Verizon, and Sprint also lock handsets to prevent them from working on competitors\u27 networks. A network provider may sometimes unlock a customer\u27s handset so that the customer can take the phone overseas to use on a foreign network, but generally, providers operate according to a business model that subsidizes expensive handsets and locks customers into multi-year contractual commitments. The iPhone, for instance, will not appear on networks other than AT&T, nor will AT&T unlock it for use overseas. If consumers want iPhones, they must use the AT&T network and be willing to use locked phones, with all their inherent limitations

Islamic Perspectives on Recognizing Opportunities: Insights from Malay-Muslim academic librarians

This paper aims to identify the antecedents of entrepreneurial competencies among Malay-Muslim academic librarians in Malaysian public universities. To collect qualitative data, ten academic librarians were interviewed in focus group discussions. The findings revealed that academic librarians' practices are influenced by their personal beliefs and knowledge of Islam, which have become ingrained in their Muslim way of life despite their lack of understanding of entrepreneurial competencies. These factors have a significant impact on librarians' cognitive processes, thus, on their entrepreneurial behavior. The findings suggest that it is pivotal to strengthen the personal beliefs and knowledge of academic librarians to be entrepreneurial

Royalty Rate-Setting for Webcasters: A Royal(ty) Mess

The Internet is a haven for free expression. Not only are content-based restrictions disfavored, but [the internet] provides relatively unlimited, low-cost capacity for communication of all kinds. Almost half of all Americans have listened to music online, whether rebroadcasts of terrestrial radio or to find niche music that terrestrial radio simply does not play, and 13 percent tune in regularly. Webcasters provide a unique outlet for new artists; however, if royalty rates are set too high for all but the largest webcasters to stay in business, the variety of music available will be severely restricted. Musical diversity stimulates the generation of new music and ideas; the mass media concentration and conformity of music may have the opposite effect, by encouraging politically mainstream messages and censoring out those which are not. Increasing royalties to the point of putting most webcasters out of business would work to destroy one of the last readily accessible sources of alternative, non-mainstream music. In response to the current state of affairs regarding royalties, I suggest that a new rate-setting model is needed for webcasters and propose a new structure

An Assessment of Needed Competencies to Promote the Data Curation and Management Librarianship of Health Sciences and Science and Technology Librarians in New England

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate health sciences and science and technology librarians’ needed data curation and management (DCM) competencies to support nascent and future patron and institutional eScience research endeavors. The data from this research will be used to align a data curation and management curriculum with the educational needs of an online eScience portal community of users, and create relevant future professional development for librarians interested in data curation and eScience librarianship. Setting/Participants: The study targeted the needed data curation and data management competencies of health sciences and science and technology librarians in six U.S. states who are on a listserv of librarians interested in learning about eScience. The sample for this study was 63 librarians. Methodology: The team created the assessment tool using content analyses of digital curation and management library literature and LIS data management curricula. The survey contained 15 open-ended and closed-ended questions and was distributed to 141 librarians using Survey- Monkey (http://www.surveymonkey.com). Results/Outcomes: The team identified twenty needed competency areas related to data curation and data management. The participants identified the necessary competencies to provide data curation and data management services. Results revealed a small number of librarians engaged in DCM and infrequent data services requests. Findings suggest there is an increase in libraries pursuing strategic plans concerning data management and the library community needs to cultivate a diverse range of technical and non-technical competencies through future professional development. Librarians saw their future roles involving DCM and sought competencies in conducting data interviews with patrons and helping patrons with NSF data management requirements. The survey results indicate the greatest need for librarians is technical hands-on training in the digital description and curation of large data sets. Discussion/Conclusion: Librarians are interested in developing data curation and data management competencies to support eScience. These data indicate that future relevant professional development for librarians interested in eScience should focus on non-technical and technical DCM competencies