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Dear DLF -- please find below various items of interest that have
crossed my path recently. Some of these you may have seen already, but
it is easy to miss things over the summer so bear with me if some of
these are repeats.
David
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1) Amazon Plan Would Allow Searching Texts of Many Books
2) "Let the games begin: Gaming technology and entertainment among
college students." Pew Internet Life Project
3) Digital Investment Opportunity Trust (DOIT) news
4) UK Prospects for institutional e-print repositories study
5) "American Women: A Gateway to Library of Congress Resources for the
Study of Women's History and Culture in the United States"
6) Scholarly publishig news
7) Applicants for Federal Grants Need a DUNS Number (Data Universal
Numbering System)
8) European Economic Association breaks with Elsevier; takes back
intellectual output to create alernative journal.
************
1) Amazon Plan Would Allow Searching Texts of Many Books
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK. July 21 New York Times.
Executives at Amazon.com are negotiating with several of the largest
book
publishers about an ambitious and expensive plan to assemble a
searchable
online archive with the texts of tens of thousands of books of
nonfiction,
according to several publishing executives involved.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/21/technology/21AMAZ.html
*****************
2) "Let the games begin: Gaming technology and entertainment among
college students."
The Pew Internet Life Project released a report this month about college
students and how they use video, Internet, and computer games. It was
written by Senior Research Fellow Steve Jones and his graduate students
at the University of Illinois-Chicago, and built on the results of a
survey done on 27 campuses. Among other things, the report looks at the
educational and social consequences of game playing.
http://www.pewinternet.org/reports/toc.asp?Report=93.
******************
3) Digital Investment Opportunity Trust (DOIT) news:
a) On September 4 at 10:00, the House Committee on Telecom and the
Internet will hold hearings on the need for the creation of DOIT. The
chief question to be addressed is: Why should available funds be spent
on DOIT rather than returned to the Treasury to fund all the other needy
programs? DLF is supportive of Digital nPOromise and DOIT, along with
EduCause, ALA, ARL, and many other organizations. Please see
http://www.digitalpromise.org/ for full information.
b) There is an op-ed written by the honorable Thomas Bliley, former
Congressman (R-VA) and previous Chairman of the House Committee on
Commerce "Seeking to fulfill the promise of telecommunications,"
published in THE HILL on, July 9, 2003. Bliley laments the pace of the
development of the content available to meet the opportunities to
transform learning, writing "when one envisions the possibilities, what
could be made of today's technology, one realizes how far we really have
to go"...he goes on to say..."Fortunately, there's a solution on the
horizon that will allow us to fulfill the promise of the
Telecommunications Act. It's called the "Digital Opportunity Investment
Trust-'DO IT' for short." The full text can be found at:
http://www.thehill.com/op_ed/070903.aspx.
***************
4) UK Prospects for institutional e-print repositories study
The ePrints UK project is producing a series of four supporting studies
that will cover a range of issues of interest to the development of
institutional repositories. The first one of these, an impact
assessment report, is now available as:
Michael Day, "Prospects for institutional e-print repositories in the
United Kingdom," ePrints UK supporting study, no. 1, v. 1.0 (28 May
2003). http://www.rdn.ac.uk/projects/eprints-uk/docs/studies/impact/
Any comments will be very welcome.
*****************
5) "American Women: A Gateway to Library of Congress Resources for the
Study of Women's History and Culture in the United States"
The Library of Congress is pleased to announce the latest addition to
its
American Memory Web site, titled "American Women: A Gateway to Library
of
Congress Resources for the Study of Women's History and Culture in the
United States," available at: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/awhhtml/.
Designed as a first stop for Library of Congress researchers working in
the
field of American women's history, American Women provides easy entree
to
an online version of the Library's recently published women's history
resource guide.
**************
6) Scholarly Publishing news
a) A bill that was introduced recently by Representative Martin Sabo of
Minnesota, the Public Access to Science Act of 2003, calls for the
exclusion from copyright protection of works resulting from scientific
research substantially funded by the Federal Government. See "Measure
Calls for Wider Access to Federally Financed Research", by Warren E.
Leary, New York Times, June 26, 2003, A23.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/26/politics/26LIBR.html?ex=1057639823&ei
=1&en=a7f096dc7182eb36>
b) Public Library of Science (PLoS) latest: "Marquee Scientists
Challenge Expensive Medical Journals," by Sharon Begley, Wall Street
Journal, June 26, 2003.
<http://online.wsj.com/article_email/0,,SB105657708191796800-H9jeoNolaZ2
o52tanqIcauBm5,00.html>
*********************
7) Applicants for Federal Grants Need a DUNS Number (Data Universal
Numbering System)
The following is a press release from the federal Institute of Museum
and Library Services (IMLS). To read an HTML version, please access:
http://www.imls.gov/whatsnew/current/050803.htm
Updated July 11, 2003
Applicants for Federal Grants Need a DUNS Number (Data Universal
Numbering System)
Background
In order to improve the statistical reporting of federal grants and
cooperative agreements, the Office of Management and Budget has directed
all federal agencies to require all applicants to federal grants to
provide a Dun and Bradstreet (D&B) Data Universal Numbering System
(DUNS) number when applying for Federal grants or cooperative agreements
on or after October 1, 2003. The DUNS number will be required whether an
applicant is submitting a paper application or an electronic
application.
Use of the DUNS number government-wide will provide a cost-effective
means to identify entities receiving those awards and their business
relationships. The identifier will be used for tracking purposes, and to
validate address and point of contact information. The DUNS number
already is in use by the federal government generally to identify
entities receiving federal contracts and by some agencies in their grant
and cooperative agreement processes. Among existing numbering systems,
the DUNS is the only one that provides the federal government the
ability to determine hierarchical and family-tree data for related
organizations.
What you need to do
Organizations should verify that they have a DUNS number or take the
steps needed to obtain one as soon as possible if there is a possibility
that they will be applying for Federal grants or cooperative agreements
on or after October 1, 2003. Organizations can receive a DUNS number at
no cost by calling the dedicated toll-free DUNS Number request line at
1-866-705-5711 or by visiting http://www.dnb.com/us/ . Individuals who
would personally receive a grant or cooperative agreement award from the
federal government apart from any business or non-profit organization
they may operate, and foreign entities are exempt from this requirement.
If your organization does not have a DUNS number, and you anticipate
that your organization will apply for a grant or cooperative agreement
from IMLS on or after October 1, 2003, you should take steps to obtain a
DUNS number in advance of the application deadline. If your organization
does not have a DUNS number, you may not be able to apply for Federal
grants or cooperative agreements after this time.
******************************
8) European Economic Association breaks with Elsevier; takes back
intellectual output to create alernative journal
http://www.eeassoc.org/JournalHistory.html
The European Economic Review (EER) was started in 1969 by Elsevier
Science, which continues to own and publish it. In 1985, the first
Council of the European Economic Association (EEA) addressed the issue
of how best to set up an Association journal. At that time, it was
feared that a new journal would not be viable and the advantages of
linking up with an existing journal seemed obvious. Hence, the EEA
Council decided to enter into an agreement with Elsevier and designate
the EER as its official journal, with effect from Volume 30, 1986. This
agreement was subsequently renewed at intervals of about five years. The
most recent agreement between the EEA and Elsevier remained in effect
until December 31, 2002, but had to be either renewed or terminated one
year before that date.
Since 1986, the EER has improved steadily in quality. The link with the
EEA gave it automatic circulation to all individual EEA members
(currently just under 2000); this link also guaranteed supplies of
high-quality papers from the annual EEA Congress and the International
Seminar on Macroeconomics, as well as a mechanism for attracting
top-quality editors. The quality improvement was reflected in a steady
increase in the EER's impact factor. Recent studies suggest that the EER
is securely within the top-twenty economics journals worldwide.
However, these successes could not compensate for the anomalous
situation whereby a large and increasingly successful professional
association did not own its own journal. Dissatisfaction at Elsevier's
pricing policies also persisted, and was highlighted by the adverse
publicity arising from Ted Bergstrom's study (published in the Journal
of Economic Perspectives in Fall 2001), showing the EER to be in another
top-twenty list: Bergstrom's "Rogue's Gallery" of the most expensive
journals to institutions.
In the light of these concerns, the Executive and Council of the EEA
decided to terminate the agreement with Elsevier, meaning that the EER
ceased to be the official journal of the EEA as of January 1, 2003.
After extensive negotiations and a competitive bidding process, the EEA
decided to launch a new journal, the Journal of the European Economic
Association (JEEA), published for the EEA by MIT Press from early 2003.
The EEA also decided to further raise the quality of its journal by
making the JEEA a truly global outlet for the best research in
economics, competing for top articles with the five leading journals in
the field.
David Seaman
Executive Director, Digital Library Federation
1755 Massachusetts Ave., NW, Suite 500
Washington, DC 20036
tel: 202-939-4762
fax: 202-939-4765
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
web: http://www.diglib.org/
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