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Academic excellence and heads of universities
by Subbiah Arunachalam 29 Dec '05

29 Dec '05

Friends: Here is a brief article on heads of universities and their academic achievements as reflected by citations to their scholarly writings. In the West there is a good correlation. It will be interesting to see how many of our vice chancellors and directors of higher educational institutions (in India) have a good academic record. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] --- Citations make the president By Adam Marcus Amanda Goodall, a doctoral student in strategic management at Warwick Business School, UK, had a hunch, based on her experience working for college officials in both the United States and the United Kingdom: The world's elite research universities put a premium on naming elite researchers as their presidents. So she tallied all the citations amassed by presidents of the world's top 100 universities, as judged by the Institute of Higher Education at Shanghai Jiao Tong University "probably the most reliable league table available," according to Goodall. Since university heads come from different disciplines with inherently different levels of expected output economics papers can take years to come out, while a productive microbiologist can easily have her name on a dozen papers in a year or more Goodall assigned each president a "normalized" citation score. That meant the Nobelist David Baltimore, president of sixth-ranked Caltech, who garnered 28,000-odd citations, earned a "president score" of 32.48. Lawyer Lee Bollinger of Columbia nee the University of Michigan, with a relatively modest list of 398, got a bit of a boost to a president score of 3.4. Among the top 20 schools in Shanghai rankings, Harvard University was first, and president Lawrence Summers also had the highest president score (36.02) with 6,088 citations. After that, the president score didn't predict placement precisely: Second was Stanford University, where president John Hennessy, a computer scientist, had 1986 citations and a president score of 23.64, far behind Caltech's Baltimore, who had the second-best president score. And while the University of California, San Francisco, placed 17th in the rankings, its chancellor J. Michael Bishop had the third-highest president score of 24.1. Rounding out the top 20 is the University of Washington's Mark A. Emmert, a social scientist, with 92 citations, which gave him a president score of 0.78. The overall findings, to be published in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Documentation, showed a correlation between the number of citations racked up by university heads and the standing of the schools they lead but only in the United States. When the 51 US schools on the list of top 100 universities are excluded, "the correlation doesn't exist," says Goodall. Still, says Bruce Weinberg, a labor economist at Ohio State University, the finding is "unquestionably true." However, Weinberg says, "It is harder to show that the scholarly standing of the president affects the quality of the university." So if Harvard decided to hire a lightweight scholar, it's unlikely that the Crimson's reputation would bleed out. "Similarly, if an undistinguished university somehow hired a top researcher as a president, it probably would not immediately vault its way into the top ranks of universities," says Weinberg. Goodall acknowledges that her study doesn't say anything about why universities choose their leaders. They may pick top scientists as presidents as much as for their ability to separate big donors from their money as for their skill at splitting atoms. It's equally possible that great researchers are simply good at everything, including running a university, or that having papers with high impact is a proxy for crucial academic leadership skills. Then there's the matter of selection bias. Top-flight scholars probably avoid chiefships at schools they consider beneath them, says Charles Oppenheim, a professor of information sciences at the UK's Loughborough University, who has seen Goodall's research. And "as universities increasingly value business and entrepreneurial skills over research skills," Oppenheim adds, "This implies that in, say, 10 years' time, similar research would not produce as strong a correlation." For her part, Goodall doesn't believe being a heavily cited and therefore presumably skilled researcher is a proxy for being a strong leader; she's known too many lab heads who treated their underlings poorly. Hiring the former to head your institution, however, is a signal from the trustees to the faculty that research is the core concern, she says. "My extensive background in research contributes significantly both to my effectiveness as the president of a major research university and to my credibility as a leader in higher education," says Amy Guttmann (1388 citations, for a president score of 11.86), president of the University of Pennsylvania, which the Shanghai rankings had at number 15. "Having a scholar-teacher as president sends a signal that even fundraising is inseparable from academic content from knowing what the university actually doesand is not just about donor cultivation cultivation's for sake," she adds. Goodall is now looking at 55 UK schools and their leaders over a period of 15 to 20 years, focusing on institutions that have moved up or down in the rankings, and whether their heads have been strong or weak researchers. The point, she says, is to see whether "the research history of university presidents impacted the performance of the universities over time." She also plans to do a case study on the California university system. After learning so much about academic leadership, would Goodall ever want to take the reins of a school? Not a chance. "It's a pretty crappy job. I would not want to do it."

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Free math textbooks
by Subbiah Arunachalam 28 Dec '05

28 Dec '05

More on OA textbooks Heather Morrison, Open Access Textbooks, Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics, December 27, 2005. Excerpt: There are many curious ironies about the open access movement, and indeed the shift from print to electronic in general. Not least of these is that while advocacy efforts focus on the peer-reviewed research article, progress towards open access is happening in areas where no advocacy efforts are directed at all, to my knowledge. One such area is open access textbooks. This came to my attention one day when searching for online math textbooks. I was not expecting to find free texts at all, on the assumption that textbooks were an area where the commercial sector would obviously prevail - after all, who would write an entire textbook without expectation of financial compensation? Imagine my surprise, then, to find the extensive list of Textbooks, Lecture Notes and Tutorials in Mathematics by Alexandre Stefanov. All resources are free, and are divided into topics such as general mathematics, number theory, algebra, algebraic geometry, topolisis, analysis, geometry, mathematical physics, probability theory, formatting documents (TEX, LATEX, etc.). Alexandre links to a number of other substantial lists, including the list of Online mathematics textbooks, including over 40 textbooks as of October 2005, maintained by George Cain, School of Mathematics, Georgia Institute of Technology.....The more I think about it, the more open textbooks make sense, particularly in mathematics. Printed textbooks are expensive - one cannot ask students to purchase more than one mathematics textbook. Yet it seems obvious that the student is much better off having access to the dozens of free textbooks that are already available. If a student is having difficulty understanding a concept explained one way, does it not make sense to provide an alternative explanation? (PS: There's a growing number of OA textbook sites, but as far as I know just one searchable portal that tries to be comprehensive: Jason Turgeon's Textbook Revolution. Check it out.)

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Library Trainee at CII-Central Library (Gurgaon)
by Aman Jha 28 Dec '05

28 Dec '05

Dear all There is a requirement of a Library Trainee at CII-Central Library (Gurgaon). Interested male candidates from Delhi/Gurgaon area, having good attitude and commitment towards work, may send their resume to <library(a)ciionline.org>. Qualification and Experience - B.Com., BLIS - Experience of working in a good corporate library Required skills - Good Computer/IT skills - Good communication skills in English - Good typing speed Job Responsibilities: - Technical & Physical processing of the books including shelving - Subscription and circulation work - Document sorting and filing - Data entry work - Visitors handling NOTE: Post is purely on contract basis for six months. Likely to be permanent. Thanks and regards, Aman Jha

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Request Project Proposals
by Sreedevi Ravindran, Scientist 'G' 28 Dec '05

28 Dec '05

Dear all DSIR under its Technology Information Programme will be establishing Incubation Centres on Content Development and Management. Attached please find the Project details. Interested universities, institututions are requested to forward the proposals( Format A, B and C) to DSIR by January 2006. Wish you all a very happy New Year. With Regards. Mrs.S.Ravindran DSIR Dear all DSIR under its Technology Information Programme will be establishing Incubation Centres on Content Development and Management. Attached please find the Project details. Interested universities, institututions are requested to forward the proposals( Format A, B and C) to DSIR by January 2006. Wish you all a very happy New Year. With Regards. Mrs.S.Ravindran DSIR

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Shorter Link : India Reads - Best of 2005
by ++ Mukesh Anand ++ 28 Dec '05

28 Dec '05

Please click on the shorter link to Best Books of 2005 http://del.icio.us/eMonitor/Best_Books_2005 compiled by - - MONITOR INFORMATION SERVICES - books + cd-rom's + e-books - Head Office: 203, Moghal Marc Ratan Complex Opp. Deepak Theatre, Narayanguda Hyderabad - 500 029 Telephone: 040-55787065 / 27552390 Facsimile: +91-40-27552390 Branches : New Delhi & IIT- Kharagpur http://www.monitorinfo.com Library Suppliers of Science, Technology & Management Publications - - Mukesh Anand Director - Marketing MONITOR INFORMATION SERVICES Please click on the shorter link to Best Books of 2005 http://del.icio.us/eMonitor/Best_Books_2005 http://del.icio.us/eMonitor/Best_Books_2005 compiled by - - MONITOR INFORMATION SERVICES - books + cd-rom's + e-books - Head Office: 203, Moghal Marc Ratan Complex Opp. Deepak Theatre, Narayanguda Hyderabad - 500 029 Telephone: 040-55787065 / 27552390 Facsimile: +91-40-27552390 Branches : New Delhi & IIT- Kharagpur http://www.monitorinfo.com http://www.monitorinfo.com Library Suppliers of Science, Technology & Management Publications - - Mukesh Anand Director - Marketing MONITOR INFORMATION SERVICES

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RE: [LIS-Forum] A new digital library in B'lore
by hemaa＠ingvysyabank.com 28 Dec '05

28 Dec '05

Hello all ! You can find some more details regarding the new digital library at the Bangalore Medical College at these links: http://www.bmcalumni.com/newsletter.htm http://news.webindia123.com/news/showdetails.asp?id=201685&n_date=20051226&c at=Health http://www.newkerala.com/news.php?action=fullnews&id=73680 http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/5922_1583234,0087.htm Thanks & Regards Hema Amble Librarian ING Vysya Bank Competence Development Centre Bangalore - 4 PH:080-26507281 Ext:36 hemaa(a)ingvysyabank.com -----Original Message----- From: Subbiah Arunachalam [mailto:arun@mssrf.res.in] Sent: 27/12/2005 2:59 AM To: lis-forum(a)ncsi.iisc.ernet.in; oa-india(a)dgroups.org; c3net(a)dgroups.org Subject: [LIS-Forum] A new digital library in B'lore Friends: Here is a news story on a digital library initiative in Bangalore. Can anyone give a detailed account? Thanks and best wishes. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] ----------------------- Digital library for Bangalore Medical College to launch this week Unique digital library opening on December 28, Deccan Herald, December 26, 2005. An unsigned news story. Excerpt: The soon to be inaugurated state-of-the-art digital library at Bangalore Medical College (BMC) is unique in scale and concept. A gift by the alumni of the college to mark its golden jubilee celebrations, users of the library can have access to full text articles from leading international and national journals, multimedia presentations by leading doctors and can also access materials in other libraries like the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences and Nimhans. The information is catalogued using open sources database Dspace. BMC Alumni Association claims the facility is the "best and biggest" in any medical college in the country. Association President Dr H C Satya and Vice-President K M Srinivasa Gowda told reporters that the entire library was wi-fi-enabled. _______________________________________________ LIS-Forum mailing list LIS-Forum(a)ncsi.iisc.ernet.in http://ncsi.iisc.ernet.in/mailman/listinfo/lis-forum

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Indian Association of University Professors
by Aman Jha 28 Dec '05

28 Dec '05

Dear friends, Grateful if anyone could help me out with brief information about 'Indian Association of University Professors'. Contact details, literature, etc. Thanks and regards, Aman Jha Librarian Confederation of Indian Industry Plot No 249-F, Udyog Vihar, Phase IV Sector 18, Gurgaon - 122015 (Haryana) Tel: 0124-5014060-67 aman.jha(a)ciionline.org http://www.ciionline.org

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Webology: Volume 2, Number 4, December, 2005
by Alireza Noruzi 28 Dec '05

28 Dec '05

Dear All, Apologies for cross-posting firstly. We are pleased to inform you that Vol. 2, No. 4 of Webology, an OPEN ACCESS journal, is published and is available ONLINE now. This issue contains: ------------------ Editorial: The HTML Title Tag and Its Importance -- Alireza Noruzi -- http://www.webology.ir/2005/v2n4/editorial6.html ----------------------------------------- An Online Multi-Lingual, Multi-Faith Thesaurus: A Progress Report on F-THES -- A. Neelameghan & K.S. Raghavan -- http://www.webology.ir/2005/v2n4/a19.html ----------------------------------------- Information Seeking Behaviour of Faculty Members of Rajabhat Universities in Bangkok -- Kingkaew Patitungkho & Neela J. Deshpande -- http://www.webology.ir/2005/v2n4/a20.html ----------------------------------------- Internet and Its Use in the Engineering Colleges of Punjab, India: A Case Study -- Rajeev Kumar & Amritpal Kaur -- http://www.webology.ir/2005/v2n4/a21.html ----------------------------------------- Book Review of Theories of Information Behavior -- Hamid R. Jamali -- http://www.webology.ir/2005/v2n4/bookreview2.html ----------------------------------------- ========================================= Call for Papers: http://www.webology.ir/callforpapers.html ========================================= Regards, A. Noruzi Dep. of Information Science University of Paul Cezanne France __________________________________________ Yahoo! DSL Something to write home about. Just $16.99/mo. or less. dsl.yahoo.com

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InfoWatch - December 2005
by M.R Lalitha 27 Dec '05

27 Dec '05

Dear LIS-Forum member, The December 2005 issue of InfoWatch is now online, bringing you the details of new Internet sites related to Science and Engineering. You can access the complete issue on the NCSI Web server at the URL : http://www.ncsi.iisc.ernet.in/infowatch/iw.php You will also find earlier issues of InfoWatch here. For your convenience, the table of contents is given below. If you wish to be on the mailing list of InfoWatch to receive the complete issue by e-mail, let us know. Also mention your format preference - html or text. Regards -Lalitha M.R (lalitha(a)ncsi.iisc.ernet.in) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ InfoWatch Tracking Networked Scientific Information Sources and Services (An electronic update service brought to you by NCSI) December 2005 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Best picks from InfoWatch 2005 This issue features selected sites from recent previous issues of InfoWatch. These sites also provide an overview of the different topics covered in the newsletter. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ In This Issue: 1. 125 Questions - What don't we know? [Science magazine's current survey of 'scientific ignorance'] 2. AllRefer Health [A medical and health information resource] 3. Center for Biological Sequence Analysis (CBS) 4. CiteULike [A free service to help academics to build a personal library] 5. Daily rotation [Headlines from 300+ technology news feed sites] 6. Discover circuits - Free electronic circuits schematics 7. Earthquake Information Network (EQNET) 8. ElectronicsInfoline - Free electronics schematics from around the world 9. Electronic waste guide - A knowledgebase on sustainable recycling of Electronic wastes 10. Enviropedia - An encyclopedia of environment 11. Genetics home reference [National Library of Medicine's web site for information about genetic conditions] 12. InterOperability Laboratory KnowledgeBase [A resource for networking and data communications products] 13. itmWEB - Information technology management WEB 14. mindat.org - The MINeral DATabase 15. National Semiconductor - The power of analog 16. OAIster [A collection of freely available, academic digital resources] 17. Pauling File- Basic database for crystal structures 18. ProcessLibrary.com - Free process information 19. Pureperformance.com - Tweaks and tips for Windows XP/2000, Windows 9x/ME 20. ResearchChannel - A consortium of research universities and corporate research divisions 21. Reshaping scholarly communication [Alternatives for cost effective publishing] 22. Singularity Institute for artificial intelligence 23. Special Topics - Summarized publication and citation data from ISI for the analysis of research trends & performance 24. Technical compendium by Wildpackets [Essays and papers on technical issues of interest to networking professionals] 25. TechOnLine - Educational resources for electronics engineers 26. Tiempo climate cyberlibrary - Global warming and the Third world 27. Top 500 World Universities - Academic ranking of world universities 2005 [The Institute of Higher Education, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China] 28. Web developers' handbook [ A reference tool for cascading style sheets, web development, search engine optimization] 29. Whole Building Design Guide (WBDG) - A building professional's gateway to design techniques and technologies 30. World Biodiversity Database (WBD) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ About InfoWatch : InfoWatch is a monthly electronic newsletter, brought out by the National Centre for Science Information (NCSI) Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore - 560 012, INDIA. Information in the newsletter is collected and verified by NCSI staff.The newsletter aims to raise awareness of new sources of information on the Internet, particularly those which are relevant for higher education and research. Some items may be of relevance only to the IISc community.Resources reported here have been taken from various discussion lists and other network tools and no special claims are made for accuracy or originality. Most of the sources cited in the newsletter were checked at the time of publication, however it is possible that some of the resources are no longer available. We welcome comments about the newsletter and suggestions for resources to be featured. Please e-mail your comments to Infowatch editors: Ms. K. Thulasi (thulasi(a)ncsi.iisc.ernet.in) & Ms. M. R. Lalitha (lalitha(a)ncsi.iisc.ernet.in) ------------------------------------------------------------------------

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A new digital library in B'lore
by Subbiah Arunachalam 26 Dec '05

26 Dec '05

Friends: Here is a news story on a digital library initiative in Bangalore. Can anyone give a detailed account? Thanks and best wishes. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] ----------------------- Digital library for Bangalore Medical College to launch this week Unique digital library opening on December 28, Deccan Herald, December 26, 2005. An unsigned news story. Excerpt: The soon to be inaugurated state-of-the-art digital library at Bangalore Medical College (BMC) is unique in scale and concept. A gift by the alumni of the college to mark its golden jubilee celebrations, users of the library can have access to full text articles from leading international and national journals, multimedia presentations by leading doctors and can also access materials in other libraries like the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences and Nimhans. The information is catalogued using open sources database Dspace. BMC Alumni Association claims the facility is the best and biggest in any medical college in the country. Association President Dr H C Satya and Vice-President K M Srinivasa Gowda told reporters that the entire library was wi-fi-enabled.

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Africa will do well to focus on OA archives
by Subbiah Arunachalam 26 Dec '05

26 Dec '05

Friends: Peter Suber's blog carries this news story. African workshop on OA repositories and libraries UNESCO supports training for building digital libraries in Africa, UNESCO News, December 20, 2005. A brief report on the Greenstone workshop at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, November 30 - 1 December 2005. Excerpt: The meeting that was co-organized by UNESCO, the Coalition of South African Library Consortia (COSALC) and Sivulile, a South African open access initiative, brought together 30 participants from Ethiopia, Lesotho, Namibia, New Zealand, Swaziland, Sudan and host country South Africa. This workshop was the third in a series of activities organized by COSALC and Sivulile (we are open in isiXhosa) aimed at raising awareness on open access models for information exchange, and ICT capacity building of information professionals in Africa institutions. These efforts are aimed at supporting the creation of digital libraries and providing archivists, librarians in Africa with skills to utilize electronic information tools and resources in their work and enhance access to online resources. --- In my view, it would be better to focus on setting up interoperable institutional open access archives in African universities and research laboratories than talking about all-embracing digital libraries. We in India have been having many national and international conferences on the topic of digital libraries and these have not taken us far. There is hardly anything to show on the ground. On the other hand, setting up archives cost much less and the results are there for all to see. Right now India cannot boast of great success in setting up OA archives, but there are some which are filling in fast. The best Indiaj effort is the GNU EPrints archive at the Indian Institute of Science. The National Institute of Technology at Rourkela is planning to mandate archiving all research papers. The National Informatics Centre's OpenMED archive is a central archive for biomedical research. These are only examples and there are a few more. And 2006 is expected to see many more archives coming up. Best wishes. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam]

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OWSA archive on ICT-enabled development
by Subbiah Arunachalam 26 Dec '05

26 Dec '05

Friends: A central archive on the subject of ICT-enabled development is set up by OneWorld South Asia (OWSA). Please visit <http://open.ekduniya.net/information.html>. Your comments and suggestions for improvement may be sent to Dr B Shadrach at <shaddy.shadrach(a)oneworld.net> or to Mr Narendra Deo of OWSA. Best wishes. Arun

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Open Course Ware & Indian universities
by Subbiah Arunachalam 26 Dec '05

26 Dec '05

Friends: Here is an excerpt from the MIT Open Course Ware website. There are many Chinese universities making their course ware availble at no cost to anyone who has an internet connection. Needless to say most of the courses are in Chinese. What it is important is that there is great awareness in China that such material should be made available free to whoever wants to use it. Higher educational institutions in other developing countries will do well to follow the Chinese (and MIT) example. Best wishes. Subbiah Arunachalam --------------------- Opencourseware Projects (around the world) The MIT OpenCourseWare (MIT OCW) project has always had a dual mission: * Provide free access to virtually all MIT course materials for educators and learners around the world. * Extend the reach and impact of MIT OCW and the opencourseware concept. The vision of the MIT faculty who first developed the opencourseware concept at MIT was that one day, there would exist a vast network of universities around the world offering open access to high-quality educational materials in a variety of different disciplines, in a variety of different languages, creating a global Web of knowledge that will improve education around the world. So MIT is very pleased to be joined by other institutions around the globe in openly sharing educational materials as it helps us fulfill the second part of the OCW mission -- to extend the OCW concept to other leading universities. The collective body of high-quality educational materials made available by these institutions provides a remarkable free and open network of resources for educators, students, and self-learners everywhere. The institutions listed below have publicly committed to the open publication of their materials in OCW initiatives, and are devoting resources to support these OCW projects. China Visit the portal page for 156 Chinese university OCW projects, featuring the following universities * Peking University * Tsinghua University * Zhejiang University * Xi'an Jiaotong University * Central South University * Beijing Jiaotong University * Sichuan University * Beijing Normal University * Dalian University of Technology * Central Radio and Television University * Shanghai Jiaotong University * Nanjing University * Jilin University * Northwest Polytechnic University * Southeast University * Sun Yat-Sen University * Fudan University * Huazhong University of Science and Technology * Renmin University of China * Huazhong Agricultural University France The engineering institutions (Grandes Ecoles) which form ParisTech have published the ParisTech OpenCourseWare project. The ParisTech institutions include: * École Nationale du Génie Rural, des Eaux et des Forêts (ENGREF) * École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées (ENPC) * École Nationale Supérieure d'Arts et Métiers (ENSAM) * École Nationale Supérieure de Chimie de Paris (ENSCP) * École Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Paris (ENSMP) * École Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications (ENST) * École Nationale Supérieure de Techniques Avancées (ENSTA) * École Polytechnique (EP) * École Supérieure de Physique et de Chimie Industrielles de la Ville de Paris (ESPCI) * Institut National Agronomique Paris-Grignon (INA P-G) * École Nationale de Statistique et d'Administration Économique (ENSAE) (associate member) Japan Visit the portal page for the following Japanese university OCW projects: * Keio University * Kyoto University * Tokyo Institute of Technology * Osaka University * University of Tokyo * Waseda University United States * Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health * Tufts University * Utah State University Vietnam * Fulbright Economics Teaching Program OCW

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Henk Moed's article in Current Science
by Subbiah Arunachalam 26 Dec '05

26 Dec '05

Dear Gene: The 25 December 2005 issue of CURRENT SCIENCE (published by Current Science Association and the Indian Academy of Sciences) carries an article by Henk Moed on citation analysis of scientific journals and a review of his recent book by me. Please visit: <http://www.ias.ac.in/currsci/dec252005/1990.pdf> and <http://www.ias.ac.in/currsci/dec252005/2171.pdf>. Thanks and regards. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam]

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India Reads - Best of 2005
by ++ Mukesh Anand ++ 26 Dec '05

26 Dec '05

Click on the link below to know which are the bestsellers in Non-Fiction Category during 2005 India Reads - Best of 2005 compiled by - - MONITOR INFORMATION SERVICES - books + cd-rom's + e-books - Head Office: 203, Moghal Marc Ratan Complex Opp. Deepak Theatre, Narayanguda Hyderabad - 500 029 Telephone: 040-55787065 / 27552390 Facsimile: +91-40-27552390 Branches : New Delhi & IIT- Kharagpur http://www.monitorinfo.com Library Suppliers of Science, Technology & Management Publications - - Mukesh Anand Director - Marketing MONITOR INFORMATION SERVICES Click on the link below to know which are the bestsellers in Non-Fiction Category during 2005 http://www.amazon.com/gp/richpub/listmania/fullview/RT0MB7KKGC0R2/104-99822… India Reads - Best of 2005 compiled by - - MONITOR INFORMATION SERVICES - books + cd-rom's + e-books - Head Office: 203, Moghal Marc Ratan Complex Opp. Deepak Theatre, Narayanguda Hyderabad - 500 029 Telephone: 040-55787065 / 27552390 Facsimile: +91-40-27552390 Branches : New Delhi & IIT- Kharagpur http://www.monitorinfo.com http://www.monitorinfo.com Library Suppliers of Science, Technology & Management Publications - - Mukesh Anand Director - Marketing MONITOR INFORMATION SERVICES

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Mandating OA for publicly funded research
by Subbiah Arunachalam 24 Dec '05

24 Dec '05

Friends: The Italians are forging ahead with a national open access repository. India, China and Brazil should follow suit and lead the way for the rest of the world! For a start, DST, DSIR, DBT and other government agencies funding research may insist that all papers resulting from public funding should be archived in an open access archive - either a central archive (e.g. OpenMED) or an institutional archive (e.g. IISc, NIT-Rourkela). The Ukrainian Parliament has recently mandated open archiving of all publicly funded research papers. Arun Profile of the PLEIADI Project Ugo Contino and three co-authors, PLEIADI, un portale per la letteratura scientifica "Open Access", Bollettino del Cilea, 99 (2005) pp. 11-16. Self-archived December 22, 2005. In Italian but with this English-language abstract: The PLEIADI Project (acronym for "Portale per la Letteratura scientifica Elettronica Italiana su Archivi aperti e Depositi Istituzionali", a portal for Italian scholarly e-literature in open archives and institutional repositories) originated from the collaboration between two major Italian university consortia, CASPUR and CILEA, within the framework of the AEPIC project. PLEIADI aims at building a national platform that offers centralized access to the scholarly literature archived in Italian repositories. Friends: The Italians are forging ahead with a national open access repository. India, China and Brazil should follow suit and lead the way for the rest of the world! For a start, DST, DSIR, DBT and other government agencies funding research may insist that all papers resulting from public funding should be archived in an open access archive - either a central archive (e.g. OpenMED) or an institutional archive (e.g. IISc, NIT-Rourkela). The Ukrainian Parliament has recently mandated open archiving of all publicly funded research papers. Arun Profile of the PLEIADI Project Ugo Contino and three co-authors, http://eprints.rclis.org/archive/00005153/ PLEIADI, un portale per la letteratura scientifica "Open Access" , Bollettino del Cilea , 99 (2005) pp. 11-16. Self-archived December 22, 2005. In Italian but with this English-language abstract: The http://www.openarchives.it/pleiadi/ PLEIADI Project (acronym for "Portale per la Letteratura scientifica Elettronica Italiana su Archivi aperti e Depositi Istituzionali", a portal for Italian scholarly e-literature in open archives and institutional repositories) originated from the collaboration between two major Italian university consortia, CASPUR and CILEA, within the framework of the AEPIC project. PLEIADI aims at building a national platform that offers centralized access to the scholarly literature archived in Italian repositories.

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Connotea
by Subbiah Arunachalam 24 Dec '05

24 Dec '05

Friends: Please visit http://www.connotea.org/ to learn about how a new free software help you in organizing your literature. Please alert your scientist friends. Arun Friends: Please visit http://www.connotea.org/ http://www.connotea.org/ to learn about how a new free software help you in organizing your literature. Please alert your scientist friends. Arun

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Contact details of Smt Abburi Chaya Devi
by T.V. Prafulla Chandra 24 Dec '05

24 Dec '05

Dear All, The contact details of Smt Abburi Chaya Devi, formerly deputy librarian, JNU and winner of Sahitya Akademi Award 2005 are given below for your kind information: bhumikahyd(a)yahoo.com kondaveetis(a)yahoo.com Smt Chaya Devi doesn't have her own email ID. If the messages are sent to any of the above two IDs, they would reach her. Her postal address is: HIG, Block 4, Flat 4 Bagh Lingampally Hyderabad 500 044 Phone Residence: 91 40 27665661 Thank you Sincerely T.V. Prafulla Chandra Senior Editor --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- NISC Export Services Pvt. Ltd. (an affiliate of NISC International, Inc. USA) S-1 Ballad Estates, St.Ann's School Road, Tarnaka, Hyderabad 500 017 Andhra Pradesh, India - Tel:+91 40 27001517 Tel/Fax:+91 40 27002538 WWW.NISC.COM A company in service to NISC worldwide. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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OA and Intelligent design vs Darwin
by Subbiah Arunachalam 24 Dec '05

24 Dec '05

Friends: I have been posting to this list news stories from Peter Suber's blog "Open Access News". My apologies to those of you who are regular readers of Peter Suber's blog. And I urge all of you interested in following developments in the field of Open Access to visit Peter Suber's blog everyday. You will find it worth your time. Best wishes. Arun [Subbiah arunachalam] ------------------------------------ OA science for lay readers will help fight ID Mike Eisen, Fight Intelligent Design - Publish in PLoS! Open Science Blog, December 22, 2005. Excerpt: Now that a federal judge in Pennsylvania has ruled that intelligent design has no place in the classroom, the scientists who rallied to defend evolution will return to academia happy that science has weathered yet another assault. But this battle will not be won in the courtroom. Antipathy toward evolution is the natural consequence of a growing gulf between the scientific community and the public. Until scientists close this gap, much of the public will continue to dismiss Darwin's theories, and we risk losing the broad public support on which science depends. Rather than blame public ignorance, scientists must accept responsibility for this distressing trend. We go about our business rarely thinking of the public as an audience for, or interested party in, our work....I propose a simple solution. We should give the public access to the peer-reviewed scientific journals in which we publish our ideas and discoveries. It is certainly the right thing to do - afterall, the public paid for most of this research, they should be able to see what their tax dollars have produced. But does the public want to read these papers? I believe they do. Many non-scientists whose interest is piqued by science stories in the popular press would love to learn more about the research directly from scientists who carried it out. People facing medical decisions would love to read the most accurate and up to date information about diseases and their treatments. When they do, they will find that much of the scientific literature is surprisingly comprehensible to a lay audience (and much more will be once authors know the public may read their work). And anyone who reads these papers will be left with a better understanding of how science works, and why we believe the things we do....[Open-access journals] invite the public in, and [the public has] responded - downloading, reading and even blogging about scientific articles like never before. Simply by choosing to publish in open access journals, scientists can honor the importance of public access and engage the public directly in their work....We must ensure that hiring, grant review and tenure committees give heavy weight to efforts (or lack thereof) to engage the public. But more importantly, we all must ask ourselves if that Science or Nature citation is worth furthering the dangerous divide between science and the public? Non-scientists can help scientists engage as well. Next time you read about some cool new scientific advance, find the paper on which this story is based. If you can't access it, email the authors and request a copy - and ask them why they didn't make it available to you in the first place. You'll be letting them know that the public is interested in what they do, and holding them accountable for their decisions. Maybe next time they will publish in a journal that reaches you. (PS: Mike Eisen is one of the co-founders of PLoS, and this essay marks the launch of his blog. Welcome to the blogosphere, Mike!) Friends: I have been posting to this list news stories from Peter Suber's blog "Open Access News". My apologies to those of you who are regular readers of Peter Suber's blog. And I urge all of you interested in following developments in the field of Open Access to visit Peter Suber's blog everyday. You will find it worth your time. Best wishes. Arun [Subbiah arunachalam] ------------------------------------ OA science for lay readers will help fight ID Mike Eisen, http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/archives/2 Fight Intelligent Design - Publish in PLoS! Open Science Blog , December 22, 2005. Excerpt: Now that a federal judge in Pennsylvania has ruled that intelligent design has no place in the classroom, the scientists who rallied to defend evolution will return to academia happy that science has weathered yet another assault. But this battle will not be won in the courtroom. Antipathy toward evolution is the natural consequence of a growing gulf between the scientific community and the public. Until scientists close this gap, much of the public will continue to dismiss Darwins theories, and we risk losing the broad public support on which science depends. Rather than blame public ignorance, scientists must accept responsibility for this distressing trend. We go about our business rarely thinking of the public as an audience for, or interested party in, our work....I propose a simple solution. We should give the public access to the peer-reviewed scientific journals in which we publish our ideas and discoveries. It is certainly the right thing to do - afterall, the public paid for most of this research, they should be able to see what their tax dollars have produced. But does the public want to read these papers? I believe they do. Many non-scientists whose interest is piqued by science stories in the popular press would love to learn more about the research directly from scientists who carried it out. People facing medical decisions would love to read the most accurate and up to date information about diseases and their treatments. When they do, they will find that much of the scientific literature is surprisingly comprehensible to a lay audience (and much more will be once authors know the public may read their work). And anyone who reads these papers will be left with a better understanding of how science works, and why we believe the things we do....[Open-access journals] invite the public in, and [the public has] responded downloading, reading and even blogging about scientific articles like never before. Simply by choosing to publish in open access journals, scientists can honor the importance of public access and engage the public directly in their work....We must ensure that hiring, grant review and tenure committees give heavy weight to efforts (or lack thereof) to engage the public. But more importantly, we all must ask ourselves if that Science or Nature citation is worth furthering the dangerous divide between science and the public? Non-scientists can help scientists engage as well. Next time you read about some cool new scientific advance, find the paper on which this story is based. If you cant access it, email the authors and request a copy and ask them why they didnt make it available to you in the first place. Youll be letting them know that the public is interested in what they do, and holding them accountable for their decisions. Maybe next time they will publish in a journal that reaches you. (PS: Mike Eisen is one of the co-founders of http://www.plos.org/index.html PLoS , and this essay marks the launch of his blog. Welcome to the blogosphere, Mike!)

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Sahitya Akademi Award for LIS professional
by T.V. Prafulla Chandra 23 Dec '05

23 Dec '05

Dear All, We are pleased to inform you that a member of our profession, Smt Abburi Chayadevi, formerly Deputy Librarian, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi has been selected for Sahita Akademy Award for 2005 for Telugu. Her collection of short stories titled Tana Margam (My Way) has earned this award. Hearty congratulations to Smt Chayadevi garu! Thank you Sincerely T.V. Prafulla Chandra PS. Please find below The Hindu report dated Dec 23, 2006 on the above. Famous novelists G. Thilakavathi (Kalmaram in Tamil), Raghavendra Patil (Teru in Kannada), Yeshe Dorje Thongchi (Mouna Ounth Mukhar Hriday in Assamese) and Manohar Joshi (Kyap in Hindi) are amongst the 23 selected for the Sahitya Akademi awards for 2005. The awards recommended by the jury members representing 23 Indian languages were approved by the Executive Board of the Sahitya Akademi, the apex literary body of the country, which met here on Thursday under the chairmanship of its president Gopi Chand Narang. Poets and short story writers dominated the 2005 awards. The Chairman said that while the award in English would be declared in due course, the award for Bengali would be declared after re- consideration. Mr. Narang said that for the first time awards to books in the newly recognised Bodo and Santhali languages had been given. Short stories Those who won awards for their collection of short stories included Abburi Chayadevi (Tana Margam - Telugu), G. V. Kakkanadan (Jappana Pukayila - Malayalam), N. Shivdas (Bhaangarsaall - Konkani), Krishnan Sharma (Dhaldi Dhuppe Da Sek - Dogri), M. Nabakishore Singh (Pangal Shonbi Eishe Adomgeeni - Manipuri), Ramchandra Behera (Gopapura - Oriya), Gurbachan Singh Bhull (Agni- Kalas - Punjabi) and Chetan Swami (Kisturi Mirag - Rajasthan). Famous poets Mangalsingh Hazowary (Jiuni Mwgthang Bisombi Arw Aroj - Bodo), Suresh Dalal (Akhand Zalar Vage - Gujarati), Hamidi Kashmiri (Yath Miani Joye - Kashmiri), Vivekanand Thakur (Chanan Ghan Gachchiya - Maithili), Swami Rambhadracharya (Sri Bhargava Raghaviyam (Epic) - Sanskrit), Jadumani Besra (Bhabna - Santhali), Dholan `Rahi' (Andhero Roshan Thiye - Sindhi) and late Arun Kolhatkar (Bhijaki Vahi - Marathi) are among those who have won the awards. Krishna Singh Moktan (Jeevan Goreto Ma - Nepali) was honoured for his collection of essays and Jabir Husain (Ret Per Khema - Urdu) was honoured for his book of memoirs. Selection procedure Mr. Narang said the books were selected on the basis of recommendations made by a jury of three members in the concerned languages in accordance with the procedure. The Executive Board declared the awards on the basis of unanimous selections made by the jurors or selection made on the basis of majority vote. The awards related to books first published during the three years immediately preceding the year of award. K. Sachidanandan, Secretary, said the award in the form of a casket containing an engraved copper- plaque and a cheque of Rs. 50,000 would be presented at a function to be held in New Delhi in February. Talking to presspersons after the Executive Board meeting, Mr. Sachidanandan said the Akademi, which had recognised 24 languages had ruled out recognition to any new languages in the immediate future. There was a lot of demand from various parts of the country in this regard, but the Akademi had decided that unless any language was included in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution, it would not be recognised by the Akademi. Vishnu Prabhakar, veteran writer in Hindi, and Manoj Das, writer in Oriya and English, had been bestowed fellowship. "Net publishing" To meet the growing challenges from the Internet, the Akademi was studying the possibility of entering "net publishing" and putting its books on the Net. "We are thinking of opening websites of our periodical literary journals in English as well as in Hindi," Mr. Sachidanandan said. As for marketing of books, he said the cost aspect vis-a-vis competition was a big factor. Nevertheless, the Akademi was going all out to promote its books through institutions as well as by participation in book exhibitions domestically and internationally, he said. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- NISC Export Services Pvt. Ltd. (an affiliate of NISC International, Inc. USA) S-1 Ballad Estates, St.Ann's School Road, Tarnaka, Hyderabad 500 017 Andhra Pradesh, India - Tel:+91 40 27001517 Tel/Fax:+91 40 27002538 WWW.NISC.COM A company in service to NISC worldwide. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Country Profiles
by Saiful Amin 23 Dec '05

23 Dec '05

Hi, I was pleasantly surprised to find Country Profiles in BBC, though not as comprehensive as EIU.com. But, it's free. Following is one sample for India: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/country_profiles/1154019.stm Best regards, Saiful -- Saiful Amin Information Specialist Edutech India 8 Khader Nawaz Khan Road Chennai 600006, India Tel: +91 44 2833 0999 GSM: +91 98407 76214 Fax: +91 44 2833 1777 www.edutechindia.com "Enhancing knowledge and skills for success, lifelong." I was pleasantly surprised to find Country Profiles in BBC, though not as comprehensive as EIU.com. But, it's free. Following is one sample for India: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/country_profiles/1154019.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/country_profiles/1154019.stm Best regards, Saiful -- Saiful Amin Information Specialist Edutech India 8 Khader Nawaz Khan Road Chennai 600006, India Tel: +91 44 2833 0999 GSM: +91 98407 76214 Fax: +91 44 2833 1777 http://www.edutechindia.com www.edutechindia.com "Enhancing knowledge and skills for success, lifelong."

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OA and development intimately interconnected
by Subbiah Arunachalam 23 Dec '05

23 Dec '05

Friends: UNESCO is championing open access. Organizations such as ICSU, CODATA and IFLA are also supporting the spreading of the culture of open access. The Ukrainian parliament has adopted a resolution to mandate open access (of all publicly funded research). And yet many developing countries, including India, China and Brazil, have not adopted OA in a big way. Open Access is especially important for development. As Professor M S Swaminathan points out, for development to take place knowledge sharing is important at four levels, viz. lab-to-lab, lab-to-land, land-to-lab and land-to-land. Here lab stands for scientists, researchers and experts. And land stands for farmers, fishermen, and the common people in general. There should be knowledge flow among experts, among the common people and two-way flow between the two. Open Access (as promoted by people like Stevan Harnad, Peter Suber, Leslie Chan, Alma Swan, and others and institutions such as the Open Society Institute, CERN, Wellcome Trust, University of Southampton, etc.) facilitates lab-to-lab knowledge flows. And the knowledge centres set up by the M S Swaminathan Research Foundation (and to be set up all over rural India by Mission 2007: Every Village a Knowledge Centre) facilitate the other three kinds of knowledge flows. If all four kinds of knowledge flows take place without a hitch, then it should be easy to achieve most development objectives, including the Millennium Development Goals. It is for this reason, Prof. Bruce Alberts, former President of the US National Academy of Sciences, continues to be a great admirer of both the work of the M S Swaminathan Research Foundation in the area of ICT-enabled holistic development and the idea of using science to leverage overall development of the less developed countries, especially those in Africa. Science and laboratory research may appear to be far from poverty reduction and capacity building in rural areas. But visionaries like Swaminathan and Bruce Alberts have shown that they are intimately connected. They are two facets of a continuous spectrum. It is for this reason, I would urge enlightened development organizations such as the Global Knowledge Partnership (GKP), International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), and OneWorld, science academies of the world, and the many United Nations and other international agencies and governments of both developed and developing countries to pay attention to improving knowledge flows through a better understaning and support of open access, open source and open science. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] --------------------- Here is a news story from Peter Suber's blog "Open Access News" UNESCO endorses OA On September 22, UNESCO adopted Amendments to the Draft Programme and Budget for 2006-2007 that have the effect of endorsing OA. (Thanks to Heather Morrison.) Excerpt: [UNESCO] Requests the Member States (a) to foster through the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) dissemination of the principles of open access; (b) to foster dissemination of the principles of open access, particularly in universities; (c) to promote developing countries open access to archives for the sake of spreading scientific know-how; Invites the Director-General (a) to assess the feasibility of creating a database on existing open access initiatives worldwide and to report at the forthcoming sessions of the Executive Board and the General Conference on the progress of open access strategies throughout the world; (b) to promote a network of national working groups with a view to fostering open access in their universities, to cooperate internationally in initiatives and projects on the subject of open access, and to promote the training of experts for cooperation in the publication of and open access to texts free of charge.

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[Fwd: [BOAI] OA recommendations of Ukrainian Parliament]
by Subbiah Arunachalam 22 Dec '05

22 Dec '05

---------------------------- Original Message ---------------------------- Subject: [BOAI] OA recommendations of Ukrainian Parliament From: "Iryna Kuchma" <kuchma(a)irf.kiev.ua> Date: Thu, December 22, 2005 2:17 pm To: boai-forum(a)ecs.soton.ac.uk -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Open access is one of the priorities in developing information society in Ukraine Recommendations of Ukrainian Parliament Ukrainian Parliament (Verhovna Rada) passed resolution On Recommendations of Parliamentary hearing on Developing information society in Ukraine (from 01.12.2005 ¹ 3175-IV) where open access is called one of the priorities in developing information society in Ukraine. In Close 2 Developing informational infrastructure of this Resolution it is recommended for the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine to create favorable conditions for developing open access repositories in archives, libraries, museums and other cultural institutions. In Close 5 Creating accessible electronic information resources it is recommended for the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine to stir to activities on creating accessible national electronic information resources especially with scientific-technical and economical information; to develop model regulation on repository of electronic documents; and for the Ministry of education and science of Ukraine to speed up development of state program on ICT in education and science including the close on development of open access resources in science, technology and education with open access condition to state funded researches. (Ukrainian version of this resolution: http://zakon.rada.gov.ua/cgi-bin/laws/main.cgi?nreg=3175%2D15) Open Access is also one of the priorities in National strategy on developing information society in Ukraine introduced to Ukrainian Parliament by Parliamentary Committee on Science and Education. Open Access recommendations in Ukraine where first introduced by the participants of Open Access Scholarly Communication Workshop, February 17-19 2005, organized by International Renaissance Foundation, Open Society Institute, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, International Association of Academies of Sciences and National University Kyiv Mohyla Academy and supported by the British Council Ukraine. Iryna Kuchma Social Capital and Academic Publications Program Manager International Renaissance Foundation phone: (+380) (44) 461-9500 fax: (+380) (44) 486-0166 e-mail: kuchma(a)irf.kiev.ua http://www.irf.kiev.ua/programs/scaap

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Information about IRs
by Namita Khandka 22 Dec '05

22 Dec '05

Respected All!! If any body is having any kind of information about Institutional Repositories in India, pls forward me. Iam doing Dissertation in this and urgently require statistics of organisation running IRs and other related links in this field. With regards, Namita Khandka AIS, Niscair New Delhi-67 __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com Respected All!! If any body is having any kind of information about Institutional Repositories in India, pls forward me. Iam doing Dissertation in this and urgently require statistics of organisation running IRs and other related links in this field. With regards, Namita Khandka AIS, Niscair New Delhi-67 __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

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Urgent Requirement of a book
by Chitra P Rao 22 Dec '05

22 Dec '05

Hi all: I need the folowing book urgently for one of our Faculty who is writing a BOOk.. Your help would be highly appreciated: Christie, Wagner and Winter: Peace Conflict and Violence : Peace Psychology in the 21st Century Prentice hall 2001. Book isnot available in the Market. Thank You chitra P rao Sr Librarian and Head LIS NITIE Mumbai 400 087 ph: 28573371 extn 337

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