The Distant Librarian

Wikipedia in the catalogue?

Image via Wikipedia

I learned from Eric Rumsey that the State Library of Kansas includes Wikipedia articles in their OPAC.  Here are some examples: http://topekalibraries.info/search/awikimedia. About 15 minutes later I saw that Aaron Schmidt posted on the DCPL Labs site that in a recent survey 88% "of people responded that they prefer the content from Wikipedia in the Catalog."  This is news to me - is this a fairly common thing these days?  Would our cataloguing department kill me if I suggested it? :-)

Yet another followup post on Harvard and EBSCO linking

Peter Murray at Distruptive Library Technology Jester (aka DLTJ) has done a bunch of reading and thinking about the recently-hot issue of Harvard Business School Publishing charging extra to allow the use of persistent URLs in course reserves and content management systems. in his post, EBSCO in Cahoots With Harvard Business Press, he goes in to detail about how Harvard is likely determining whether links are coming from course reserves or a CMS, and looks at EBSCO's terms of use and privacy policy.   He concludes with he following unanswered questions:

And what is EBSCO's role in this? Isn't a library's contract with EBSCO, not Harvard Business Publishing? Is EBSCO earning more revenue from this HBP license requirement to enable deep linking to article content? If so, isn't that just an incentive for EBSCO to do the same with other high-profile publishers?

To me it sounds as though we can complain all we like, but both EBSCO and Harvard are legally covered.  I guess one more question is how much bad publicity do they want to receive over this policy?

I encourage you to read Peter's entire post.

ACRL/DLS Haworth Press Distance Learning Librarian Conference Sponsorship Award

If you're going to ALA in Chicago this year, here's a session you may want to attend:

ACRL Distance Learning Section
ALA Annual Conference Meeting Invitation

Please join us in Chicago for the presentation of the ACRL/DLS Haworth Press Distance Learning Librarian Conference Sponsorship Award to this year's recipient Jack Fritts, immediately followed by a lively open discussion on Future Distance Learning Section Programs, Poster Sessions and Research

Date:           Sunday, July 12, 2009
Time:          10:00 am - Noon
Location:       Hilton, Northwest 2

A little more info on the Harvard linking BS

Following up on yesterday's post about Harvard Business School Publishing not allowing PURLs within EBSCO, I received an email from a librarian at a small school who pointed out that the following appears at the bottom of each HBS publication within Business Source Premier/Complete:

"Harvard Business Review Notice of Use Restrictions, May 2009 Harvard Business Review and Harvard Business Publishing Newsletter content on EBSCOhost is licensed for the private individual use of authorized EBSCOhost users. It is not intended for use as assigned course material in academic institutions nor as corporate learning or training materials in businesses. Academic licensees may not use this content in electronic reserves, electronic course packs, persistent linking from syllabi or by any other means of incorporating the content into course resources. Business licensees may not host this content on learning management systems or use persistent linking or other means to incorporate the content into learning management systems. Harvard Business Publishing will be pleased to grant permission to make this content available through such means. For rates and permission, contact permissions@harvardbusiness.org."

He also mentioned that HBSP had leaned on his school and when they decided not to pay, EBSCO turned off the ability for them to create PURLs for that publisher.

So how does Harvard BSP know whether a given link is being used for "private individual use" or for within electronic reserves, electronic course packs, a syllabi, or within a learning management system?  I guess if the link is openly available on a website they might come across it, but there should be no way they'd even be aware that a link was being used from within a learning management system, right? 

I'll let you know when they contact us; has your school lost the ability to create persistent links to HBSP publications? 

Harvard Business School Publishing not allowing UK libraries to build PURLs in EBSCO - are we next?

Just read a couple of deeply troubling posts at Libreaction and the library staff blog at the University of Lincoln in which librarians are crying foul over what appear to be mafia tactics by Harvard Business School Publishing.  According to the Libreaction post:

For a few years now HBSP have been requesting payments of as much as £15k pa from several UK academic business libraries simply for the privilege of making persistent links to HBR articles on reading lists and VLEs.

The links in question are being made to EBSCO's Business Source products (which provide HBR in full-text), however, it is Harvard rather than EBSCO who have approached librarians directly for additional payment.  Thus far these demands for extra monies, which are being requested on top of the EBSCO subscription, are, as mentioned above, merely part of a 'pilot scheme', however, HBSP plan to roll it out to all EBSCO subscribers in due course.

Thus far, all UK librarians who have been offered the 'opportunity' to pay this additional sum have unsurprisingly turned it down, and as a result have recently had the ability to make persistent links to HBR turned off by EBSCO.

I have the vaguest of recollections of hearing something about this a year or more ago, but it's so vague as to have possibly been a bad dream.  But seriously, what's going on here?!?  I just checked, and I can still create persistent URLs to Harvard Business Review within Business Search Complete. 

Here's a scary PDF flyer in which Harvard Business School Publishing

...is excited to offer the opportunity to upgrade your existing annual subscription to EBSCOhost to a new level that allows for use of HBR articles for course use... If you choose not to upgrade your current EBSCOhost at this time, please reiterate to your faculty and students that your license with EBSCOhost allows them to access HBSP content only for research purposes. If you choose not to upgrade, please be advised that EBSCO may disable the ability to persistent link to HBSP content at your institution.

Give me a break!  This is ridiculous!  According to both blog posts this is coming from Harvard, not EBSCO. 

What do you think about this?  Surely we're not going to let our UK colleagues get rolled, only to find that we're next!

TechSmith launches an Education Community Blog and Site

TechSmith, makers of Snagit, Camtasia Studio and Jing, has launched a new blog aimed at the education market.  Dave McCollom, Education Evangelist, writes that "The primary goal for this blog is to provide a home for stories and examples of how educators are using TechSmith products." He also points to the new Techsmith Education Community, where you'll find information on using TechSmith products in the classroom (Introduction to screen capture in education, Make a video for when you or students are absent, etc...)  Should prove to be a valuable site as it grows.

Many libraries are lending Kindles

While we wait to see if BYU will reinstate their Kindle lending program, take a look at the list of libraries that are still lending them put together by iReaderreview.  I's not just a list; there's a fair bit of supporting content in the post.

Kindle, Libraries

Download Your YouTube Videos Legally

Amit at Digital Inspiration points out that you can now download your YouTube videos legally.  But the emphasis is on YOUR videos.  The best tool I know for being able to download all YouTube videos, and in the format of your choice, is KickYouTube.