dec05a.indd Stephanie Orphan N e w s f r o m t h e F i e l d St. Ambrose Univ. and Universidad Anáhuac become sister libraries As a result of ACRL President Camila Alire’s promotion of the concept of sister libraries, Universidad Anáhuac in Mexico and St. Am- brose University in Davenport, Iowa, have agreed to be the first libraries to participate in ACRL’s pilot project of academic sister li- braries. Formal discussions between the two institutions were held after the 2005 ALA An- nual Conference in Chicago to reinforce an informal relationship that had already been in place for a little over a year. St. Ambrose and Universidad Anáhuac are both medium-sized Roman Catholic universi- ties with programs in liberal arts, social sci- ences, and health sciences. Both have book collections of around 200,000 volumes, as well as strong journal and audiovisual col- lections. St. Ambrose has donated several of its publications to the Universidad Anáhuac, which in turn has helped St. Ambrose’s O’Keefe Library with the identification and se- lection of Spanish-language materials that are currently in the process of being acquired. Future plans include a regular exchange of publications and library promotional ma- terials, interlibrary loan, document delivery services, and donations of arts and crafts related to the U.S. and Mexican cultures that will be exhibited at the two libraries. Faculty and student exchange programs have also been discussed, although no date has been established for these more ambitious projects. RLG joins open content alliance RLG, a not-for-profit membership orga- nization of more than 150 research librar- ies, archives, museums, and other cultural memory institutions, has joined the Open Content Alliance (OCA), a consortium that is building a permanent archive of digitized text and multimedia content. Textual mate- rial from OCA will largely be free to read and, in most cases, available for saving or printing using formats such as PDF. OCA calls this initiative the Open Library Project. The project will create free Web access to important book collections from around the world. Books are scanned, then offered in an interface for free reading online. RLG’s immediate role in the initiative is to provide bibliographic information needed to aid in materials’ selection and description for searching. RLG’s union catalog is the premier source of bibliographic descriptions for use in research and research collections management. More information about the Open Library Project is available at www. openlibrary.org/ ACRL Committee on Ethics announces ETHICSFORUM ACRL’s Committee on Ethics has established ETHICSFORUM, a new electronic discussion list to stimulate discussion among librarians about ethical issues within academic librari- anship. The discussion list is an ideal venue for debating critical topics with ethical di- mensions in academic librarianship, such as, copyright, privacy, and freedom of speech. Librarians will also be able to examine ethi- cal questions within the context of the ALA Code of Ethics and explore the desirability of drafting a supplemental code specifi c to academic and research libraries. To subscribe to ETHICSFORUM, visit lists.ala.org. American Univ. unveils 1 millionth volume American University (AU) Library announced the acquisition of its 1 millionth volume dur- ing a ceremony in early November. The book in question is a first edition of John Locke’s Some thoughts concerning education (1693). The million-and-first volume was also revealed—Mary Wollstonecraft’s On the vindication of the rights of women (1792). Both items were carefully selected for their influence on education, modern thinking, and American culture and were donated by Friends of American University Library. University Librarian Patricia Wand dedicated the 1-millionth-volume celebration to the people who worked to build the collection and those who funded the collection. AU’s library was established in 1892 with a dona- tion of a Bible and complete sets of the New York Times and the Methodist Review. C&RL News December 2005 770 http:lists.ala.org http:openlibrary.org Thomson Gale offers podcast feeds Thomson Gale has begun offering podcast feeds to InfoTrac on Thomson Gale Pow- erSearch and its Student Resource Center, Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center, and History Resource Center databases. Weekly presidential radio addresses by George W. Bush from January 2005 to the present are now being podcast, with new presidential radio addresses being added weekly. Pod- casting, a means of distributing audio pro- grams through the Internet, allows users to select their desired feeds for downloading to an iPod or MP3 device to hear the mate- rial whenever they choose. Book Review Digest celebrates 100th birthday Book Review Digest, introduced in 1905 as H.W. Wilson’s third original reference product, is now 100 years old. The re- source is available in print and through WilsonWeb online, as Book Review Digest Plus and Book Review Digest Retrospective: 1905–1982. Free 30-day trials of the elec- tronic products are available. Visit www. hwwilson.com for more information. Oxford Journals releases open access results Oxford Journals has released the fi rst re- sults from its open access model, Oxford Open, which was launched in July. The ini- tiative gives authors the option of paying for their research to be made freely avail- able online immediately upon publication. Results from the first quarter of operation show an average of 9 percent open access take-up by authors across the 21 participat- ing journals, with take-up limited to the life sciences and medicine. Some life science journals have published up to 5 percent of papers under the open access model, while others have published up to 17 percent. Most authors submitting papers for open access are from subscribing institutions, who pay a discounted rate compared to nonsubscribing institutions. Visit the Daughters of the Republic of Texas Library during the ALA Midwinter Meeting in San Antonio In the gardens of the Alamo, south of the mu­ seums and beneath an old oak tree, is a sur­ prise: the Daughters of the Republic of Texas Library—a research library in Texas history, open to the public, with an online catalog and librarians at hand to help researchers. The small building holds some 20,000 books, 1,000 documents, 300 manuscript collec­ tions, 40,000 photographs, 1,000 maps, 1,000 works of art (including the painting featured on the cover of this issue), and 17,000 fold­ ers of clippings, all with a focus on Texas history, San Antonio history, and the Alamo. Nineteenth­century Texas paintings grace the reading­room walls. The library vault holds such items as original broadside copies of the Texas Declaration of Independence, Spanish viceregal documents, a letter written by one of the Alamo defenders, and a vintage photograph of the surrender of federal troops in San Antonio at the beginning of the Civil War. Opened in 1945, the core of the library collection was the gift of William Eager Howard of Dallas, who donated more than 2,000 items. The growth of the collection has been made possible entirely through donations of material and funds used for acquisitions. The present building was built in 1950, with funds donated by Sallie Ward Beretta in memory of her husband, John King Beretta.The collection is owned and maintained by the Daughters of the Republic of Texas, a lineage organization whose members are direct descendants of Republic of Texas pioneers, and which acts as the custodian of the Alamo on behalf of the State of Texas. Librarians respond to mail, telephone, and e­mail requests for information, and help nearly 1,900 visiting researchers an­ nually. A noncirculating research facility, the library is open for use six days a week, Monday–Saturday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday hours are by appointment. For more infor­ mation please call (210) 225­1071 or e­mail drtl@drtl.org. Take some time out during the Midwin­ ter Meeting to visit this unique library. December 2005 771 C&RL News mailto:drtl@drtl.org http:hwwilson.com Simmons College invites library leaders to participate in management Ph.D. program Simmons College Graduate School of Li- brary and Information Science has created a new Ph.D. program in managerial leader- ship in the information professions. A key component is the position of professor of practice, who will provide students with interactive access to advanced models of library management and leadership. The program’s codirectors are inviting nation- ally recognized individuals from leading in- formation institutions to be considered for these leadership roles. Professors of prac- tice will guide students through courses, seminars, distance learning, and indepen- dent inquiry. They will also collaborate on research with students and other faculty. Those interested in the professors of prac- tice positions should contact Peter Hernon at peter.hernon@simmons.edu. 2006 NSSE to include ACRL-submitted items The 2006 National Survey of Student En- gagement (NSSE) will include four items submitted by ACRL related to library use and information competency. They will ap- pear as experimental items at the end of the survey. The items were compiled and submitted by ACRL’s Institute for Informa- tion Literacy’s College Student Survey Proj- ect Group (an article detailing the history of the project appeared in the November issue of C&RL News). The ten new items to be included assess the depth of students’ library usage (Web site visits, on-site visits, asking librarian for help); use of face-to-face or online library instruction; institutions’ emphasis on critical thinking, problem solving, and evaluation skills; and institutions’ contribution to stu- dents’ ability to evaluate quality of informa- tion and understanding of ethical use of information. CSA provides access to scholar profi les in social science databases CSA is sponsoring complimentary access to the new Scholar Universe: Social Science ser- vice for all customers of CSA social science databases delivered through the Illumina platform. Records of verifi ed author and fac- ulty profiles, provided by Scholar Universe, offer researchers a link between static con- tent and the active community of members researching in a field. Subscribers to the CSA Illumina social science databases now have access to more than 100,000 scholar and or- ganization profiles covering active research- ers at four-year colleges and universities in the United States and Canada. Newly formed company purchases three established Proquest businesses Four former members of the Proquest man- agment team have created a new compa- ny, National Archive Publishing Company (NAPC), which has acquired three existing and established business operations from Proquest Information and Learning. UMI Pe- riodicals in Microform, XanEdu, and Micro- film Digitization Service are now being op- erated by NAPC. NAPC will also work with Proquest under a long-term service contract to produce microfilm and digital content. The company is headquartered in Ann Ar- bor, Michigan. ACRL Legislative Update returns After a hiatus, the ACRL Legislative Update is back up and running. This e-mail udpate service provides information on federal legislative issues of particular interest to academic and research libraries every few weeks, as needed. The first update, dis- tributed on November 7, gave background and current status on two issues—a recent Federal Communications Commission rul- ing extending the Communications Assis- tance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) to broadband networks and Broadcast Flag copyright protection rules, which would have the unintended consequence of harm- ing distance education in the digital era by preventing fair use. To join the list of academic and research librarians keeping informed through the ACRL Legislative Update, subscribe today by sending an e-mail to listproc@ala.org with “subscribe LEGUPDATE fi rstname lastname” in the message. ACRL wants the Legisla- tive Update to be helpful to you. If you have questions, comments, or suggestions, please contact ACRL Scholarly Communica- tions/Government Relations Specialist Kara Malenfant at kmalenfant@ala.org. C&RL News December 2005 772 mailto:kmalenfant@ala.org mailto:listproc@ala.org mailto:peter.hernon@simmons.edu Endeavor and Sun Microsystems expand on preservation technologies partnership Endeavor Information Systems, a subsidiary of Elsevier, and Sun Microsystems have an- nounced a new agreement through which Sun, Elsevier, and Endeavor will collaborate to create the next-generation platform for digital preservation and storage and optimize current technologies for each other’s plat- form. Sun is creating software that connects Endeavor’s ENCompass digital library man- agement system to Sun’s Java System Access Manager to ensure the appropriate digital data is being distributed to the appropriate people. By combining Sun’s infrastructure with Endeavor’s software, the companies seek to help libraries, universities, and mu- seums to more easily and securely convert, store, manage, and distribute their informa- tional assets. Blackwell’s Collection Manager adds e-books Blackwell’s Book Services has added more than 25,000 titles from Ebook Library (EBL) to Collection Manager, its free Web-based acquisition and collection development sys- tem. Customers will be able to order the e- books in the same way as print books, us- ing the request, order, and export features. Customers using EDI technology can also transmit electronic orders for e-books di- rectly to Blackwell’s. EBL books are iden- tifiable by the e-book icon and the e-book format displayed in the title citation and title detail. Blackwell’s will receive weekly up- dates from EBL of titles added to their col- lection, and librarians can take advantage of Blackwell’s e-book title notifi cation ser- vice by signing up at www.blackwell.com /level2/ListservSignup.asp. Indiana Univ. transfers millionth book to auxiliary library facility Indiana University Libraries transferred its 1-millionth volume to the Ruth Lilly Auxil- iary Library facility (ALF). Materials are being shifted to ALF to make room on overcrowded shelves in the university libraries. Volumes selected for transfer are low-use and rare and fragile materials. The millionth book trans- ferred is a rare 1734 German translation of Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote. It will be housed in the ALF vault at 50 degrees and 30 percent relative humidity, with no UV light. The book is believed to be one of only two existing copies available in North American libraries. After being accessioned by ALF, it will be temporarily displayed in the Lilly Li- brary as part of an exhibit on the 400th an- niversary of Don Quixote. December 2005 773 C&RL News Submit a proposal for the ACRL/CNI/EDUCAUSE Joint Virtual Conference ACRL invites you to submit a proposal for the first Virtual Conference offered jointly by ACRL, the Coalition for Networked Infor­ mation (CNI), and EDUCAUSE. Submissions will be accepted through January 6, 2006. The ACRL/CNI/EDUCAUSE Virtual Confer­ ence, to be offered April 20–21, 2006, will provide a forum for an energizing exchange of ideas focusing on technology and aca­ demic librarianship. The conference theme, “Innovate and Motivate: Next Generation Libraries,” will explore how revolutions in technology impact academic librarianship and higher education. The conference will take place in a LearningTimes Online Conference Com­ munity, which will provide an environment in which groups of participants, both small and large, will gather electronically to learn, collaborate, and network. The conference will offer both synchronous and asynchro­ nous sessions, and the online conference community will remain active for one year after the event. Proposals are invited for a variety of ses­ sion formats, including interactive Webcasts, online roundtable discussions, discussion boards, and online poster sessions. Descrip­ tions of the session formats are online at www.ala.org/acrl/events (Click “Virtual Conference”). The complete text of the Call for Presentation, including conference track descriptions and the online proposal form, is available at www.ala.org/acrl/events (Click “Virtual Conference”). Questions about the Call for Presentation or Virtual Conference should be directed to msutton@ala.org, (312) 280­2522. http:www.blackwell.com