may05a.indd N e w s f r o m t h e F i e l d Stephanie Orphan ACRL National Conference a hit with academic and research librarians Nearly 4,000 attendees from every state and 15 countries joined ACRL at its 12th National Conference in Minneapolis last month. The conference, “Currents and convergence: Navigating the rivers of change,” not only set attendance records (approximately 3,500 people attended the 2003 National Confer­ ence in Charlotte), but also broke records for the most first­time attendees (1,059) and the most conference scholarship recipients (94). Those who were unable to make it to Minneapolis were able to register for the Virtual National Conference, a fi rst­time ef­ fort that offered live Webcasts of select pro­ grams, blogs, discussion boards, and access to presenter materials. Programs covered a broad range of is­ sues and topics affecting academic and research libraries, including open access to research, the first­year experience, and new technologies. Audio CDs or cassettes of conference programs are available for sale at www.acrl.org/minneapolis and proceedings can be purchased through ACRL’s online bookstore at www.acrl.org/publications. The online conference community will be available to registrants for one year at home. learningtimes.net/acrl. Penn creates Offi ce of Digital Publishing The Pennsylvania State University Libraries have partnered with Penn State Press to cre­ ate an Office of Digital Scholarly Publishing at Penn State. The primary mission of the office will be to use new media technol­ ogy to advance scholarly communication at Penn State and the larger academic com­ munity. Through projects sponsored by the office, the libraries and press will be able to clarify the costs associated with electronic publishing and assess the long­term benefi ts to the scholarly communication system. The work of the office will also directly involve the Penn State community in managing the changes to the benefit of the faculty and their research goals. The libraries bring to the project expertise in programming, digiti­ zation, Web site development, and access to mechanisms such as indexing and metadata. The press brings expertise in editorial mat­ ters ranging from peer review to copyedit­ ing and developmental editing. A goal of the Office of Digital Scholarly Publishing is to make research publications available online by moving existing print journals and mono­ graphs to a digital environment. Thomson Gale launches Borges archive Thomson Gale has launched The Life and Works of Jorge Luis Borges: A Digital Data­ base, which features rare information from the Jorge Luis Borges Collection and Docu­ mentation Center of the Fundacion San Tel­ mo. The database is the first to provide ac­ cess to a wide range of materials on Borges (1899–1986), including those that are rare or have appeared in unindexed national and provincial newspapers and journals. More information is available at www.gale.com/ pdf/facts/JorgeBorges.pdf. NISO developing metasearch documents The National Information Standards Orga­ nization’s (NISO) Metasearch Initiative is preparing to roll out documents on techni­ cal solutions to the challenge of providing metasearch services. A “Best Practices for Metasearch” document is scheduled for re­ lease as a free download in June. Also slated for June are draft standards for trial use with accompanying implementation guidelines describing, for example, the minimum con­ tent providers and database providers can do to make their content more visible as it is channeled into the library community. Par­ ticipants in the initiative focus their work in the areas of access management, collection description, and search and retrieval. Foundation preserves Keller legacy The American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) has completed archival categorization and preservation of its Helen Keller Archive, the largest collection of Keller’s writings and photographs in the world. AFB has been re­ 354C&RL News May 2005 http:www.gale.com www.acrl.org/publications www.acrl.org/minneapolis sponsible for the Keller materials since the 1960s, when it was selected by Keller as the repository of her papers. Documents and photos from the archive have been cataloged in a specialized database, which is available to researchers and the general public online at www.afb.org/ead and is fully accessible to people with disabilities. Old Testament Abstracts now online EBSCO Publishing has expanded its collec­ tion of databases pertaining to religious stud­ ies with the release of Old Testament Abstract Online, available through EBSCOhost. The information in the database, a product of a partnership between the American Theologi­ cal Library Association and the Catholic Bib­ lical Association, was previously available only in print and in a CD­ROM database. It includes indexing and abstracts for journal articles, monographs, multiauthor works, and software related to Old Testament stud­ ies. Coverage dates back to 1978. Univ. of Miami opens new music li­ brary, technology center The University of Miami opened its Marta and Austin Weeks Music Library and Tech­ nology Center in April. The 22,000­square­ foot Weeks Music Library houses 22,000 books, 71,000 scores, 46,000 sound record­ ings, and important collections of musi­ cal theater archives, musical manuscripts, research collections, and e­resources. The holdings were previously housed in mul­ tiple locations across campus. The 5,934­ square­foot Technology Center is home to advanced music production labs, including a multimedia instruction and learning lab, music engineering technology lab, and elec­ tronic music lab. Dynix launches Corinthian ILS for academic, research market Dynix has launched a fourth­generation integrated library system (ILS), Corinthian, designed specifically for academic and research libraries. Development began in 2002, with Dynix employees logging thousands of hours with library directors, system administrators, and staff members from leading academic and research insti­ tutions. The system includes native Oracle support and is able to integrate with other campus technologies such as LDAP, uP­ ortal, Kerberos, Shibboleth, eCommerce, May 2005 355 C&RL News Visit the Newberry Library during the ALA Annual Conference A number of events will be happening at the Newberry Library in Chicago during the ALA Annual Conference. The library, featured on our cover, is a private research library open to the public. Tours Free tours of the Newberry Library are of­ fered Thursdays at 3:00 p.m. and Saturdays at 10:30 a.m. Reservations for groups are required and may be scheduled through the library’s Office of Events (312­255­ 3595). Self­guided tours will be available at the information kiosk in the lobby of the library throughout the ALA Annual Conference, with the exception of Sunday and Monday. Exhibitions Two exhibits are on display at the library through July 16. “Disbound and Dispersed: The Leaf Book Considered,” featuring 60 leaf books by noted typographers, can be viewed in the Hermon Dunlap Smith Gallery (more information is available at www.newberry.org/programs/LeafBooks. html) and “Marie Antoinette” is located in the R. R. Donnelley Exhibit Gallery. Reading rooms The library’s reading rooms are open Tues­ day through Thursday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Friday and Saturday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. A reader’s card (free of charge) is required for admittance to the reading rooms. The following items are required to register for a reader’s card: a photo ID, proof of current address (driver’s license, check, bill, etc.), and a research topic that can be supported by the Newberry Library collections. The Newberry Library is located at 60 West Walton Street in Chicago. More infor­ mation about the library is available online at www.newberry.org. www.afb.org/ead Linux, Unicode, Java/J2EE, architecture and others. IEEE offers full­text search All of the more than 1.1 million online tech­ nology documents from IEEE are now full­ text searchable for members and subscrib­ ers through the online delivery system, IEEE Xplore 2.0. The system powers IEEE online subscriptions for organizations and indi­ viduals and contains documents from IEEE journals, magazines, transactions, and con­ ferences as well as all active IEEE standards and journals and conference proceedings from Europe’s Institution for Electrical Engi­ neers. Xplore 2.0 also allows nonsubscribing guest researchers to conduct free keyword searches of abstracts. IMLS has new home The Institute of Museum and Library Ser­ vices (IMLS) relocated in late April. The new offices are located at 1800 M Street NW, 9th Floor, Washington, D.C., 20036­5841. E­mail and Web site addresses remain the same, however telephone and fax numbers have changed. Updated contact information is available on the IMLS Web site at www.imls. gov/about/abt_staf.htm. “Fun Run” benefits Univ. of Tennessee libraries More than 130 runners turned out to support the University of Tennessee (UT) Libraries in February by participating in the 13th an­ nual “Love Your Libraries Fun Run.” The race, sponsored by UT’s Graduate Student Senate, attracts serious competitors who run a 3.1­mile course, as well as other library supporters who pay the race fee and par­ ticipate in a one­mile “Fun Walk.” The Fun Run benefi ts the libraries, with proceeds this year being used to purchase materials with an environmental focus—a tie­in with UT’s “Environmental Semester,” during which en­ vironmental issues were a central theme in classes and campus events. SciFinder Scholar expands reach SciFinder Scholar, a product of the Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS), has exceeded an in­ stalled user base of 1,000 college and univer­ sities worldwide. The 1,000­institution mark was surpassed with the signing of agree­ Subscribe to ACRL Update to stay up-to-date on ACRL activities ACRL Update is an e­mail notifi cation service designed to keep you informed about ACRL initiatives, professional de­ velopment opportunities, publications, and other items of interest in the aca­ demic and higher education community. To receive timely notifi cations of ACRL news and events, subscribe today! Join the ACRL Update list by send­ ing an e­mail to listproc@ala.org, with the message “SUBSCRIBE ACRLUPDATE Your Name” ments with academic consortia in Brazil and Chile covering 100 universities whose com­ bined enrollment totals more than 1 million students. SciFinder Scholar provides access to CAS databases containing bibliographic information for chemistry­related literature and patents back to the beginning of the 20th century, plus a large chemical substance database, the CAS Registry. CAS is a division of the American Chemical Society. Innovative announces institutional repository system Innovative Interfaces has announced that it will be offering an Open Archives Initiative (OAI)­compliant institutional repository sys­ tem. The system, Symposia, will help librar­ ians become more engaged with campus communities and support content creators, such as academic faculty or public offi cials that desire to or are mandated to make their work available to the widest group possible. Content creators will be able to submit both “born­digital” and converted documents to the repository and create online communi­ ties that mirror the departments, commit­ tees, and outreach partnerships to which they belong. Each group can establish its own levels of permissions for participating contributors or library staff members. The system will include a Web­based submis­ sion form as well as a search tool for public access. Symposia was developed in partner­ ship with Northeastern University Libraries, which is currently using the system to build its digital institutional repository. 356C&RL News May 2005 mailto:listproc@ala.org www.imls Letter to the editor Dear Editor: Your January 2005 article, “Consid­ ering RFID: Benefits, limitations, and best practices,” by Laura J. Smart, both overstates RFID’s supposed benefi ts and minimizes RFID’s disastrous downsides and the strong, articulate opposition to RFID use in libraries. The article identifi es numerous individ­ ual proponents of RFID, yet does not name any individual opposition spokespersons and does not provide any detail about, or summary of, the specifi c objections raised by opponents. These include con­ cerns strongly expressed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) about the sur­ veillance society that each RFID imple­ mentation is helping to advance. The issue of potential health risks to library users and staff from Radio Frequency Radiation utilized by RFID wireless scanners is not addressed, nor does the article consider how existing “best practices” do not satis­ factorily address privacy threats. The article asserts RFID’s supposed “po­ tential to reduce repetitive stress injuries [RSI] for circulation staff,” citing what was said by one library at “recent public hear­ ings”—but omits the questions that have been raised about the lack of documented evidence of a connection between existing checkout methods and RSI, and the lack of hard evidence that RFID systems have reduced RSI. Converting to self­service checkout can be done with existing bar code technology, if desired, without con­ verting to RFID. Regarding another claimed benefi t, the article does not disclose the proponent’s vendor connection, even though the cited Web site clearly does so, stating, “Birgit Lindl, from Bibliotheca RFID Library Sys­ tems, reports . . . .” Additionally, the article also omits noting that Lindl’s claimed 85 percent labor savings at Mastics­Moriches Community Library apparently came from a brief test measuring check­in and check­ out time for media items only—a limited measurement that represents just a small part of RFID­related activities and a fraction of the typical library’s circulation. The article downplays a big downside: a huge RFID security hole. Any library that depends on RFID technology to prevent loss or theft is wide open to massive—and completely undetected—losses. The article states, “Boss reports that some tags can be blocked by wrapping them in household foil.” But the actual citation reads, “Any item in the RFID system can be compro­ mised if a visitor wraps the protected mate­ rial in ordinary household foil to block the radio signal.” (emphasis added) When the article asks rhetorically, “If only the bar code information is there, how could the adversary violate a patron’s free­ dom to read?” it unfortunately ignores the refutation provided by some of the author’s own sources. Tracking a tag’s presence at selected points, and the presumably associated person, can be accomplished with existing portable or doorway read­ ers without knowing the title of the book, and the connection between bar code and title or borrower can be made in a variety of ways, certainly by government entities legally able to access library data­ bases/records. Perhaps most egregiously, the article does not seriously consider the option of librarians rejecting RFID outright and standing with the growing number of organizations like the ACLU and EFF in their efforts to protect against the very real threats posed by this technology. The RFID “controversy” does not stem alone from the “potential of RFID technologies to erode privacy and civil liberties,” as stated, but from RFID’s actual ability to do so, right now, using existing, commercially available technology. Your readers deserve a fuller and more open discussion of this important issue.— Peter Warfield, executive director, Library Users Association May 2005 357 C&RL News