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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 **************************************8 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/