Martha Brogan has been appointed associate university librarian for collection development and management at the University of Pennsylvania Library. Brogan will run a $12 million acquisitions program, oversee a collection that exceeds five million volumes, and supervise a staff of more than 40 professionals. Her experience in research libraries spans 25 years, including positions at the University of Minnesota, Yale University, and Indiana University, where she served as associate dean and director of collection development from 1998 to 2003. Most recently, Brogan worked as a researcher under the auspices of the Council on Library & Information Resources, the Digital Library Federation, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Howard Harris has been named president of Library Dynamics, which offers collection management tools. He formerly was general manager.
Ridley Kessler retired government documents librarian at the University of North Carolina (UNC), Chapel Hill, died on January 11 of congestive heart failure. Kessler retired from UNC in 2003 after 33 years of service. He served as the regional depository librarian for federal documents for the state of North Carolina for more than 25 years and was active in the Government Documents Round Table of the American Library Association.
SPARC at Ten: A Decade Later, Organization Still Aims to Be Part of The Solution
What a difference a decade makes. In 2007, SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) celebrates its tenth anniversary, now with an expansive mission to work not only on behalf of libraries but for the welfare of the higher education community at large, and for individual researchers and the public. "It's pretty amazing to me to look back and see how far we've come to with the organization," SPARC Executive Director Heather Joseph, who replaced Rick Johnson in 2005, told the LJ Academic Newswire. "We began with real community-based, grass-roots efforts, like alternative journals. We still do that kind of work but we've branched out more into things like our advocacy program. Today, we spend so much more time talking with policy makers about how to create an overall better climate. The day-to-day work very little resembles what we were doing when SPARC first started."
Back on the eve of SPARC's five-year anniversary, then executive-director Johnson playfully told the LJ Academic Newswire he'd be quite happy to see the next five years bring an end to the problems plaguing libraries and scholarly communication to the point where SPARC was no longer needed. Of course no one, including Johnson, expected that to happen and, accordingly, SPARC has continued to grow, both in terms of its agenda, as well as its presence, with new organizations now launched both in the UK and Japan. "We're still at our heart a library membership organization," Joseph said, operating under the Association of Research Libraries umbrella, with primary funding coming from membership dues. "But we're now much more coalition-driven." That "coalition-driven" approach, Joseph says, has been successful in getting the message out. Membership is up 15 percent over the last two years, now numbering more than 200 institutions in North America, Asia, and Australia, with an additional 100 institutions belonging to SPARC Europe.
With its partners, SPARC's agenda has included some high-profile battles on behalf of open access and public access initiatives, such as the 2005 effort to support the National Institutes of Health's public access policy. While SPARC has concentrated recently on such activities, Joseph says SPARC remains committed to three program areas: education, such as its Create Change and Author's Rights campaigns; incubation and business development, such as its involvement with BioOne and Project Euclid; and advocacy campaigns, such as the NIH effort. "Advocacy in 2005 took a lead, and in 2006, we reinvigorated our education campaign," Joseph said. "Incubation has lagged behind," she conceded, but asserted that the three-prong commitment, implemented by Johnson and the SPARC steering committee, remains "fantastically stable and productive."
Much more remains to be done, she adds. "I do think SPARC has made an impact. We don't really talk about the serials crisis any more, for example, it's sort of a given. What [constituents are] interested now is what tools we can give them to work with." Where would Joseph like to see SPARC be in five years? "I'd like us to be positioned as an organization that facilitates new opportunities," she says, "rather than addressing a crisis."
Do Over: New Net Neutrality Bill Emerges in Congress
Roughly six months after legislators failed to move a bill that would preserve net neutrality, the now Democrat-controlled Congress will consider a new bill, the Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2007. The bill, introduced by Senators Byron Dorgan (D-ND) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME) would block broadband providers, who have heavily lobbied Congress, from assessing charges based on the type of content or services made available and would forbid them from prioritizing delivery of certain content over their networks. Jeannine Kenney, senior policy analyst, Consumers Union, said the bill would help "ensure that consumers will continue to enjoy the competitive and affordable services that broadband has brought them," and that "big telecommunications companies cannot use their networks to hinder consumers' access to those services." The American Library Association is among a coalition supporting net neutrality.
The latest bill comes after Representatives Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) and Rick Boucher (D-VA), LJ's 2006 Politician of the Year joined with House Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr. (R-WI) John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI) in 2006 to introduce HR 5417, the "Internet Freedom and Nondiscrimination Act of 2006." The bill was stalled in committee. Boucher said net neutrality legislation was vital to keep the "market power broadband providers now exercise over transmission from extending to control of content."
Opponents, however, say the legislation represents government meddling. "These proposed neutrality regulations essentially create a legal loophole for large content companies such as Google, eBay, and Amazon to avoid paying for the online bandwidth they use," said Chris Wolf of Hands off the Internet, a coalition of companies that oppose the legislation. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Kevin Martin, in an interview during the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, agreed that Internet users should not see their access blocked, but, according to Network World, also said that certain web site providers could be charged for premium bandwidth and services.
A Line in the Tundra: After Complex Negotiation, Norwegian Libraries Drop Journal Package
In a breakdown that illustrates the ongoing complexity of e-journal licensing deals, four Norwegian universities announced on the SPARC electronic discussion list that they would not renew their subscription to Blackwell journals. While not disclosing specific terms, Helge Salvesen, director of the library at the University of Tromso, noted that the universities had indicated as early as 2005 that steeper price increases could not be "easily tolerated" in any new deal. In a memo to colleagues shared with the LJ Academic Newswire, however, Salvesen suggested that a range of factors led to the deal's demise, including the confluence of a high Norwegian Value Added Tax (VAT) and "a very meager e-only discount" offered by Blackwell. "During the negotiations we did have some success concerning the capped price increase for the next three years," Salvesen explained, "but we were unable to persuade Blackwell to alter its five percent e-only discount."
In Norway, electronic access products are subject to a hefty VAT of 25 percent, Salvesen said, meaning that "only a five percent reduction" for e-only access was "quite unsatisfactory." Salvesen added that the Blackwell e-only discount was "far less than we get from every other publisher." In addition, a complex arrangement within the universities meant that, while administered by the libraries, some subscriptions were controlled by different academic departments. Should a department outside of the library choose to cancel a title, however, Salvesen suggested, the library would be liable for any price adjustments to the package. "The university libraries felt very strongly and almost as a principle that they could in no way be responsible for acquisitions that were outside of their control and should not be punished if random titles were cancelled sometime during the agreement term."
The timing and tone of the Norwegians' release was less than ideal for Blackwell, coming so close on the heels of its recent merger with Wiley, which drew a concerned response the library community. Blackwell officials, however, stressed that the deal's breakdown had nothing to do with the merger, and reiterated that the merger will have no effect on practices or announced prices for 2007. "The negotiation and the differences between the libraries and Blackwell predated the announcement of the acquisition," noted Blackwell spokesperson Judith Mendoza. Mendoza said Blackwell's sales policies have not changed, and that the company would not issue a formal statement or comment further on the negotiations. Not renewing the deal means researchers at the four Norwegian universities will lose access to 778 Blackwell-journals, and will have to "get along...using interlibrary loans and established goodwill from their patrons," according to Salvesen.
As ALA Midwinter Gets Rolling in Seattle, ACRL Gears Up for Conference in Baltimore
As many librarians make their way to Seattle for the American Library Association (ALA) Midwinter Meeting, ACRL officials this week sought to remind librarians to firm up plans for the upcoming Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) biennial national conference, slated for the Baltimore Convention Center, March 29-April 1. ACRL expects more than 3000 librarians and staff, as well as leaders in higher education and guests, to discuss the top trends and issues facing students, faculty and of course libraries nationwide.
Themed "Sailing into the Future—Charting Our Destiny," the 13th ACRL National Conference will feature keynote speakers including National Public Radio's Nina Totenberg, Baltimore's own legendary filmmaker John Waters, and scholar Michael Eric Dyson. Panels will explore everything from the changing nature of academic and research librarianship to interactive gaming and social networking technology, the future of reference, open access, and recruitment to the profession. Once again, ACRL also will also offer a virtual component with online webcasts, discussion boards, blogs, chat rooms, and more. For more details and to plan ahead, visit www.acrl.org/baltimore.
So 1998: Is Talk of Revived Reed Elsevier, Wolters Kluwer Deal Wishful Thinking?
Are Reed Elsevier and Wolters Kluwer once again pondering a merger? Not likely, experts say. But despite the collapse of a £20 billion deal that would have merged Reed Elsevier and Wolters Kluwer in 1998 (either due to European Commission regulatory concerns or financial details, depending on whom you believe), some investment bankers are apparently still bullish on the idea. London's Independent reported this month that Swiss investment bank Credit Suisse has "told clients that a private equity bid for Reed or tie-up with Wolters Kluwer could generate strong returns." The merger talk sent Reed Elsevier stock up slightly, although unnamed traders in the article, and in other financial papers, were quick to throw cold water on the notion. "This looks like more pushing ideas in public because they have not been taken seriously in private," one trader told the Independent. Still, the idea hit the financial pages worldwide, with Wolters Kluwer Chief Executive Nancy McKinstry even addressing the rumor, telling reporters at Forbes that her company had no merger plans. A Reed Elsevier spokesperson, meanwhile, declined comment, perhaps a wise move in that the rumors were edging stock prices higher.
Best Sellers in Chemistry, May 2006–present, as compiled by YBP Library Services
Periodic Table: Its Story and Its Significance
Scerri, Eric R.
Oxford University Press
2007. 0195305736. $35.00
ACS Style Guide: Effective Communication of Scientific Information
Ed. by Anne M. Coghill
American Chemical Society
2006. 0841239991. $59.50
CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics
Ed. by David R. Lide
CRC Press
2006. ISBN 0849304873. $139.95
Molecular Organic Materials: From Molecules to Crystalline Solids
Fraxedas, Jordi
Cambridge University Press
2006. ISBN 0521834465. $125.00
Chemical Element: A Historical Perspective
Ede, Andrew
Greenwood
2006. ISBN 0313333041. $65.00
Colloidal Particles at Liquid Interfaces
Ed by Bernard P. Binks
Cambridge University Press
2006. ISBN 0521848466. $145.00
Light-Associated Reactions of Synthetic Polymers
Ravve, A.
Springer
2006. ISBN 0387318038. $99.00
Handbook of Single Molecule Fluorescence Spectroscopy
Gell, Chris
Oxford University Press
2006. ISBN 0198529422. $95.00
Static Headspace—Gas Chromatography: Theory and Practice
Kolb, Bruno
John Wiley
2006. ISBN 0471749443. $99.95
Ionic Compounds: Applications of Chemistry to Mineralogy
Yoder, Claude H.
John Wiley
2006. 0471740462. $59.95
Elements of Molecular and Biomolecular Electrochemistry: an Electrochemical Approach to Electron Transfer Chemistry
Savant, Jean-Michel
John Wiley
2006. ISBN 0471445738. $135.00
History and Use of Our Earth's Chemical Elements: A Reference Guide
Krebs, Robert E.
Greenwood
2006. ISBN 0313334382. $75.00
Dendrimers in Medicine and Biotechnology: New Molecular Tools
Boas, U.
Royal Society Chemistry
2006. ISBN 0854048529. $129.00
New Geometries for New Materials
Lord, Eric A.
Cambridge University Press
2006. ISBN 0521861047. $140.00
Organofluorine Chemistry
Uneyama, Kenji
Blackwell
2006. ISBN 1405125616. $179.99
Surface and Nanomolecular Catalysis
Ed. by Ryan Richards
Taylor & Francis
2006. ISBN 1574444816. $169.95
Intermolecular Interactions: Physical Picture, Computational Methods and Model Potentials
Kaplan, I. G.
John Wiley
2006. 0470863323. $165.00
Chemical History: Reviews of the Recent Literature
Ed. by Colin A. Russell
Royal Society Chemistry
2005. ISBN 0854044647. $150.00
Name Reactions: A Collection of Detailed Reaction Mechanisms
Li, Jie Jack
Springer
2006. ISBN 3540300309. $89.95
Structure and Chemistry of Crystalline Solids
Douglas, Bodie E.
Springer
2006. ISBN 0387261478. $129.00
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