December 2005 - LIS-Forum - ncsi.iisc.ernet.in

Re: [medlib] 2020 - Shape of Academic and Research Libraries
by Sukhdev Singh 15 Dec '05

15 Dec '05

Dear Friends, Thank you all very much in responding to email on the above subject. Ihad made certain assumptions that could be true in the year 2020.Under such circumstances, what could be the Shape of Academic andResearch Libraries? I did not touch upon the Public and NationalLibraries, as their functions are more of serving the citizens and ofarchival of national heritage. Some of you [1][2] have valid reasons to question such assumptionsespecially when it comes to India. Infrastructure like Electricity andReliable Internet connectivity could be major hurdles. You won'tbelieve that even in Delhi, the capital of India, there are regularpower cuts. Even in day of Govt. Control of power distribution thesituation was much better. Only problem was billing and their payment.With private companies, billing and payments is no problem, can behandled conveniently over Internet. But the power cuts are a routineand unscheduled. So lesson learned is that Privatization withoutcompetition is worse. But friends, hold a bit, lack of infrastructure won't affect thecoming shape of libraries in India. The Reason? Our Research andTeaching depends largely depends on what is published outside India.Even good Indian content is published outside India. So we have nochoice if much of it is available in electronic format in future. Iagree with some of you [2][5] that paper is more convenient mode ofreading. But then efforts to develop display gadgets that will givethe comfort of paper are on way and by 2020 could be a reality. So, Ithink, whether we are ready or not – content may only available inelectronic form [3][6] from developed countries. Economics ofpublishing may not favor print formats. The publishers will bedistributing the content, as done now, in various business models –Free, Fee Based, Pay-per-view etc. Only thing would be that confusionsaround copyrights etc would be cleared and taken care of by the year2020. Friends, training of the end-users will also be not a major problemthen. The future users are the now primary school children. You willappreciate how both their teachers and parents keen to teach themcomputers. Infact, if a middle class Indian family is buying a homecomputer today, it is for their children. I hope this generation ofusers may be well ahead of present day users. I am not painting a gloomy picture for future of Librarianship. I amonly assuming a "worst – case scenario". I know, I was told in mymatriculation math class, how to solve problem and find unknownquantity – 'Let the quantity be "X" !!!' and so on. So friends, under the given assumptions, what would be the librariesof year 2020 look like? References:1. http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/medlib/message/163 - Satish S Munnolli2. http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/medlib/message/164 - Varalakshmi3. http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/medlib/message/165 - Surinder Kumar4. http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/medlib/message/166 - Vasumathi Sriganesh5. http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/medlib/message/168 - Rama Reddy6. http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/medlib/message/167 - Prasanna --Sukhdev Singh, NIC.http://openmed.nic.inhttp://indmed.nic.in

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RE: [LIS-Forum] Interesting book available- free full text Online
by madhuresh.singhal 15 Dec '05

15 Dec '05

Dear Friends, In continuation of Mr. Pradeep's mail, I would like to add that National Academies Press is providing 3500+ books freely in PDF format. One can read the book online or can download full text pdf. There are couples of good titles in scientific publishing, DL's, Information Management, and on various major subjects ranging from Agriculture to Biology.....Computer......and Urban Development. One can get a full list of all freely available books (1959 till 2005). And when you are there at NAP website, try their Discovery Engine, which will give you the related keywords derived from the results and other options like Research dashboard, Find Similar etc. And also an interesting service is Reference Finder (Find more like your own document). Here you are provided with a text box where you can paste up to 8 pages of text from any other source or your own document and can get 1) relevant reports from NAP and other institutes OR 2) Extract key terms to produce a more fine-tuned set of resources to use to build web queries. Here are couples of titles which might be of general interest. Electronic Scientific, Technical, and Medical Journal Publishing and Its Implications: Proceedings of a Symposium (2004) Open Access and the Public Domain in Digital Data and Information for Science: Proceedings of an International Symposium (2004) A Patent System for the 21st Century (2004) Developing a Digital National Library for Undergraduate Science, Mathematics, Engineering and Technology Education: Report of a Workshop (1998) Please note the change in my mail id and address. Regards Madhuresh Singhal Assoc. Res. Scientist - Inf. Sc. Advinus Therapeutics Pvt. Ltd. 21 & 22, Phase 2, Peenya Industrial Area, Bangalore - 560058 Phone: +91 80 51172085, Ext. 25; Mobile 098861 82822 E-mail: madhureshsinghal(a)yahoo.com http://nettalk2.tripod.com/ -----Original Message----- From: lis-forum-bounces(a)ncsi.iisc.ernet.in [mailto:lis-forum-bounces@ncsi.iisc.ernet.in] On Behalf Of pradip umdale Sent: Wednesday, December 14, 2005 6:21 PM To: LIS-FORUM Subject: [LIS-Forum] Interesting book available- free full text Online Dear Members An interesting book available- free full text Online - "Adviser, Teacher, Role Model, Friend: on Being a Mentor to Students in Science and Engineering." http://books.nap.edu/openbook/0309063639/html/index.html Regards Pradipkumar Pradeepkumar M Umdale Proj Ass. National Chemical Laboratory Information Division/ Library Pashan Rd., Pune- 411 008 Ph.No.91-20-25902031/25902038 (Direct) --------------------------------- Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your partner now.

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Google to launch music content feature
by rahul kumar 15 Dec '05

15 Dec '05

Dear All, McGraw-Hill Professional, in its continuing effort to provide the most authoritative and innovative digital content to professionals and students worldwide, today announced the establishment of a Digital Advisory Board. The board comprises representatives from McGraw-Hill's customer base, including decisionmakers in corporate, public and academic libraries at Sun Microsystems, Weill Cornell Medical College, the University of Ottawa, the University of Toronto, and the University of California-San Diego. To read more Click below: http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D8EGGFV83.htm?campaign_id=apn_… Regards Rahul Kumar Jaypee Institute of Information Technology A-10, Sec-62, Noida, UP --------------------------------- Yahoo! Shopping Find Great Deals on Holiday Gifts at Yahoo! Shopping Dear All, McGraw-Hill Professional, in its continuing effort to provide the most authoritative and innovative digital content to professionals and students worldwide, today announced the establishment of a Digital Advisory Board. The board comprises representatives from McGraw-Hill's customer base, including decisionmakers in corporate, public and academic libraries at Sun Microsystems, Weill Cornell Medical College, the University of Ottawa, the University of Toronto, and the University of California-San Diego. To read more Click below: http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D8EGGFV83.htm?campaign_id=apn_… http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D8EGGFV83.htm?campaign_id=apn_… Regards Rahul Kumar Jaypee Institute of Information Technology A-10, Sec-62, Noida, UP Yahoo! Shopping Find Great Deals on Holiday Gifts at http://us.rd.yahoo.com/mail_us/footer/shopping/*http://shopping.yahoo.com/;… Yahoo! Shopping

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New service aims to help developing world in research
by sandeep bhavsar 15 Dec '05

15 Dec '05

New service aims to help developing world in research Stefanie Olsen December 14, 2005 Scientists in developing countries may soon have better access to peer research on the Internet, thanks to a partnership between search specialists at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Elsevier. MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory is contributing technology to a joint project with Elsevier that will allow scientists with limited bandwidth to access information online more easily, the school announced on Tuesday. MIT's technology, called TEK, lets researchers with limited resources, such as outdated technology or weak funds, send a query to its servers and search engine. TEK will collect documents, compress them and send them back via email a week later, saving the recipient on connectivity costs. Combined with Elsevier's science search engine, dubbed Scirus, TEK will hone in on the science-related subset of the Web for researchers, according to the two partners. Called Search Scirus with TEK, the service "can help bridge the information divide between technologically advanced and developing countries, serving the global scientific community at large", Sharon Mombru, Scirus' senior product manager, said in a statement. The move comes as many projects are under way to bring more scientific information to the Web and mitigate the costs of otherwise pricey information. Google, for example, is adding many different sources of scientific data to its specialised search engine, Google Scholar. Still, the project doesn't directly address the slow connection speeds that bandwidth-challenged researchers face. MIT and Elsevier plan to bring the project to institutions with specific expertise in information-delivery to developing countries. "We hope that organisations with access to users in these countries will take Elsevier's lead and get involved... to help put this initiative into practice and extend the reach of valuable scientific information available on the Internet," said Saman Amarasinghe, associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT. Sandeep Bhavsar Librarian Dr.V.N.Bedekar Institute of Research and Management Studies Thane(W) PH : 25364492 25446554 25339868 Mo : 9867437438 email : sandeep.bhavsar(a)gmail.com ___________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Exclusive Xmas Game, help Santa with his celebrity party - http://santas-christmas-party.yahoo.net/

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Fw: [BOAI] Functioning IRs
by Subbiah Arunachalam 14 Dec '05

14 Dec '05

[Forwarding from the AmSci OA Forum. --Peter Suber] Posted on behalf of Subbiah Arunachalam, Leslie Chan and Barbara Kirsop Regarding comments to the list on the costs of setting up and maintaining an Institutional Repository (IR), we agree that figures are being publicised about the costs without distinguishing whether these are solely for the institute's published research output or for a high-cost Institute-wide or Campus-wide resource for all purposes. So when issuing cost statements it is critical to explain precisely what is being set up, otherwise figures are meaningless. Because of these confusions, we are concerned that the very high figures quoted can deter smaller institutions and developing countries from setting up open access archives. To off-set such concerns, we know that over 70 repositories for research publications have already been set up in the developing world and we have evidence of the low costs associated with these. Only yesterday a colleague from India responded to a question we asked, saying '....organisations can do with a server just costing about 40 K (rupees) and use a broad band connectivity. This connectivity has become very cheap recently due the launch of Broadband Services by BSNL/MTNL/Private Cos. Running the server is also not a problem for us. We are already paid for other work. It just takes fraction of our time to maintain the server and handle the approval of uploaded articles. In the same manner, Indian Universities / Research Institutes already have infrastructure in form of libraries and librarians....' And we have had other similar reports from developing country organisations. Cost should not be used as an argument to dissuade organisations from setting up an eprints server. As Arthur says, costs are trivial compared with the overall institutional budgets and can generally be absorbed. If further examples of costs are to be reported, the purpose of the repository and the overall research budget of the institution should be stated at the same time. Leslie Chan, Subbiah Arunachalam, Barbara Kirsop Electronic Publishing Trust for Development [Forwarding from the AmSci OA Forum. --Peter Suber] Posted on behalf of Subbiah Arunachalam, Leslie Chan and Barbara Kirsop Regarding comments to the list on the costs of setting up and maintaining an Institutional Repository (IR), we agree that figures are being publicised about the costs without distinguishing whether these are solely for the institute's published research output or for a high-cost Institute-wide or Campus-wide resource for all purposes. So when issuing cost statements it is critical to explain precisely what is being set up, otherwise figures are meaningless. Because of these confusions, we are concerned that the very high figures quoted can deter smaller institutions and developing countries from setting up open access archives. To off-set such concerns, we know that over 70 repositories for research publications have already been set up in the developing world and we have evidence of the low costs associated with these. Only yesterday a colleague from India responded to a question we asked, saying '....organisations can do with a server just costing about 40 K (rupees) and use a broad band connectivity. This connectivity has become very cheap recently due the launch of Broadband Services by BSNL/MTNL/Private Cos. Running the server is also not a problem for us. We are already paid for other work. It just takes fraction of our time to maintain the server and handle the approval of uploaded articles. In the same manner, Indian Universities / Research Institutes already have infrastructure in form of libraries and librarians....' And we have had other similar reports from developing country organisations. Cost should not be used as an argument to dissuade organisations from setting up an eprints server. As Arthur says, costs are trivial compared with the overall institutional budgets and can generally be absorbed. If further examples of costs are to be reported, the purpose of the repository and the overall research budget of the institution should be stated at the same time. Leslie Chan, Subbiah Arunachalam, Barbara Kirsop Electronic Publishing Trust for Development

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Free Live Presentation of LiBSUITE RFID system.
by Pranaykumar Dhiwar 14 Dec '05

14 Dec '05

Dear All, We Cordially Invite you for a Free Live Demonstration of LiBSUITE RFID at Hotel Ashraya International, SHANGHALA HALL, 149, Bhagvan Mahaveer Road (Infantry Road) Diagonally Opp to Police Commissioners Office, Bangalore 560 001. On Friday 16th December 2005 Between 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM (Any One Hour which you find comfortable ) Requested to Give us a Call on Soft-AID Computers (P) Ltd. 080- 23464717 / 23444860 or 9844278564 (Vanishree) and confirm what time is suitable for you to attend. Thanks & Regards, Pranaykumar Dear All, We Cordially Invite you for a Free Live Demonstration of LiBSUITE RFID at Hotel Ashraya International, SHANGHALA HALL, 149, Bhagvan Mahaveer Road (Infantry Road) Diagonally Opp to Police Commissioners Office, Bangalore 560 001. On Friday 16th December 2005 Between 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM (Any One Hour which you find comfortable ) Requested to Give us a Call on Soft-AID Computers (P) Ltd. 080- 23464717 / 23444860 or 9844278564 (Vanishree) and confirm what time is suitable for you to attend. Thanks & Regards, Pranaykumar

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Interesting book available- free full text Online
by pradip umdale 14 Dec '05

14 Dec '05

Dear Members An interesting book available- free full text Online - "Adviser, Teacher, Role Model, Friend: on Being a Mentor to Students in Science and Engineering." http://books.nap.edu/openbook/0309063639/html/index.html Regards Pradipkumar Pradeepkumar M Umdale Proj Ass. National Chemical Laboratory Information Division/ Library Pashan Rd., Pune- 411 008 Ph.No.91-20-25902031/25902038 (Direct) --------------------------------- Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your partner now. Dear Members An interesting book available- free full text Online - "Adviser, Teacher, Role Model, Friend: on Being a Mentor to Students in Science and Engineering." http://books.nap.edu/openbook/0309063639/html/index.html http://books.nap.edu/openbook/0309063639/html/index.html Regards Pradipkumar Pradeepkumar M Umdale Proj Ass. National Chemical Laboratory Information Division/ Library Pashan Rd., Pune- 411 008 Ph.No.91-20-25902031/25902038 (Direct) http://yahoo.shaadi.com Yahoo! India Matrimony : Find your partner now.

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Why is open access important for higher education?
by Subbiah Arunachalam 13 Dec '05

13 Dec '05

Here is an interview, reproduced from Peter Suber's blog "Open Access News". Arun --- Interview with Ray English on OA Michael Roy, Open Access to Scholarship: An Interview with Ray English, Academic Commons, December 11, 2005. Ray is the Library Director at Oberlin College. Excerpt: Why is open access important for higher education? Open access is one strategy - and actually the most successful strategy so far - for addressing dysfunctions in the system of scholarly communication. That system is in serious trouble. High rates of price increase for scholarly journals (particularly in scientific fields), stagnant library budgets, journal cancellations, declining library monograph acquisitions, university presses in serious economic trouble, and increasing corporate control of journal publishing by a small number of international conglomerates that have grown in size through repeated mergers and acquisitions - those are all symptoms of the problem. Scholars have lost control of a system that was meant to serve their needs; more importantly, they are also losing access to research. Open access has extraordinary potential for overcoming the fundamental problem of access to scholarship. It is a means of reasserting control by the academy over the scholarship that it produces and of making that scholarship openly available to everyone - at anytime and from virtually any place on the globe. Why does open access matter to liberal arts colleges in particular? It is especially important for liberal arts colleges because of the access issue. Liberal arts college libraries have smaller budgets, compared to the research universities. While even the major research libraries cannot afford all of the journals that they need, the lack of access is an even bigger problem in the liberal arts college realm. Faculty at many liberal arts colleges are expected to be active researchers and independent study is also a hallmark of a liberal arts college undergraduate education. So the lack of access to journal literature can be even more problematic in the liberal arts college framework than it is for the research universities.... What's the hottest current issue related to open access? I think it's the issue of taxpayer-funded research. Both in this country and abroad there is increasing interest in making publicly-funded scientific research openly accessible. We saw the beginnings of that with the National Institute of Health policy that was instituted last year and I think we will soon see a broad national debate about the advisability of this for all U.S. government agencies. The United Kingdom is moving toward a comprehensive policy of mandating open access to all government-funded research. What is your role in the open access movement? I have been a member of the steering committee of SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) since its inception. SPARC, which is a coalition of academic and research libraries, has been a prominent advocate for open access. I have also played a leading role in the scholarly communications program of the Association of College & Research Libraries. I chaired a task force that recommended the ACRL scholarly communications initiative and I have been chair of the ACRL Scholarly Communications Committee since it was established. Being involved with both SPARC and ACRL has put me in the middle of a number of these issues for the past several years. Here is an interview, reproduced from Peter Suber's blog "Open Access News". Arun --- Interview with Ray English on OA Michael Roy, http://www.academiccommons.org/the-commons/interviews/Ray_English_Open_Acce… Open Access to Scholarship: An Interview with Ray English , Academic Commons , December 11, 2005. Ray is the Library Director at Oberlin College. Excerpt: Why is open access important for higher education? Open access is one strategy and actually the most successful strategy so far for addressing dysfunctions in the system of scholarly communication. That system is in serious trouble. High rates of price increase for scholarly journals (particularly in scientific fields), stagnant library budgets, journal cancellations, declining library monograph acquisitions, university presses in serious economic trouble, and increasing corporate control of journal publishing by a small number of international conglomerates that have grown in size through repeated mergers and acquisitions those are all symptoms of the problem. Scholars have lost control of a system that was meant to serve their needs; more importantly, they are also losing access to research. Open access has extraordinary potential for overcoming the fundamental problem of access to scholarship. It is a means of reasserting control by the academy over the scholarship that it produces and of making that scholarship openly available to everyone at anytime and from virtually any place on the globe. Why does open access matter to liberal arts colleges in particular? It is especially important for liberal arts colleges because of the access issue. Liberal arts college libraries have smaller budgets, compared to the research universities. While even the major research libraries cannot afford all of the journals that they need, the lack of access is an even bigger problem in the liberal arts college realm. Faculty at many liberal arts colleges are expected to be active researchers and independent study is also a hallmark of a liberal arts college undergraduate education. So the lack of access to journal literature can be even more problematic in the liberal arts college framework than it is for the research universities.... Whats the hottest current issue related to open access? I think its the issue of taxpayer-funded research. Both in this country and abroad there is increasing interest in making publicly-funded scientific research openly accessible. We saw the beginnings of that with the National Institute of Health policy that was instituted last year and I think we will soon see a broad national debate about the advisability of this for all U.S. government agencies. The United Kingdom is moving toward a comprehensive policy of mandating open access to all government-funded research. What is your role in the open access movement? I have been a member of the steering committee of http://www.arl.org/sparc SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) since its inception. SPARC, which is a coalition of academic and research libraries, has been a prominent advocate for open access. I have also played a leading role in the scholarly communications program of the Association of College & Research Libraries. I chaired a task force that recommended the ACRL scholarly communications initiative and I have been chair of the ACRL Scholarly Communications Committee since it was established. Being involved with both SPARC and ACRL has put me in the middle of a number of these issues for the past several years.

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Researchers Crack Biometric Security with Play-Doh
by rahul kumar 13 Dec '05

13 Dec '05

Dear all A Professor at Clarkson University in New York has proved that biometric security systems can be easily "spoofed" with fake fingerprints. Read must at http://www.sci-tech-today.com/news/Biometrics-Cracked-with-Play-Doh/story.x… Regards Rahul Kumar Learning Resource Centre Jaypee Institute of Information Technology(Deemed University) A-10 , Sec-62, Noida(UP) --------------------------------- Yahoo! Shopping Find Great Deals on Holiday Gifts at Yahoo! Shopping Dear all A Professor at Clarkson University in New York has proved that biometric security systems can be easily "spoofed" with fake fingerprints. Read must at http://www.sci-tech-today.com/news/Biometrics-Cracked-with-Play-Doh/story.x… http://www.sci-tech-today.com/news/Biometrics-Cracked-with-Play-Doh/story.x… Regards Rahul Kumar Learning Resource Centre Jaypee Institute of Information Technology(Deemed University) A-10 , Sec-62, Noida(UP) Yahoo! Shopping Find Great Deals on Holiday Gifts at http://us.rd.yahoo.com/mail_us/footer/shopping/*http://shopping.yahoo.com/;… Yahoo! Shopping

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AOL Tests Remote Access Service
by rahul kumar 13 Dec '05

13 Dec '05

Dear all America Online has begun testing a new service that lets users access their PC remotely from any computer that has a browser and is connected to the Internet. The new service, called LinktoPC, became available on Friday to AOL subscribers interested in trying it out, an AOL spokesperson said Monday. "We haven't offered this type of service before," he said. The technology behind LinktoPC comes from WebEx Communications, a company that specializes in online meetings and Web conferencing. get more at: http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,123911,00.asp Regards Rahul Kumar Learning Resource Centre Jaypee Institute of Information Technology(Deemed University) A-10 , Sec-62, Noida(UP) --------------------------------- Yahoo! Shopping Find Great Deals on Holiday Gifts at Yahoo! Shopping Dear all America Online has begun testing a new service that lets users access their PC remotely from any computer that has a browser and is connected to the Internet. The new service, called LinktoPC, became available on Friday to AOL subscribers interested in trying it out, an AOL spokesperson said Monday. "We haven't offered this type of service before," he said. The technology behind LinktoPC comes from WebEx Communications, a company that specializes in online meetings and Web conferencing. get more at: http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,123911,00.asp http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,123911,00.asp Regards Rahul Kumar Learning Resource Centre Jaypee Institute of Information Technology(Deemed University) A-10 , Sec-62, Noida(UP) Yahoo! Shopping Find Great Deals on Holiday Gifts at http://us.rd.yahoo.com/mail_us/footer/shopping/*http://shopping.yahoo.com/;… Yahoo! Shopping

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