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A Free Library of Computer Science Knowledge (fwd)
by Mailing List Manager 08 May '06

08 May '06

Date: Sat, 6 May 2006 03:23:34 -0700 (PDT) From: Dabas Bharat K <dabasbk(a)yahoo.com> A Free Library of Computer Science Knowledge The Springer Computer Science Reading Room offers you free access to books and journals in your area of interest. Each month, new content is added to the Reading Room in: Artificial Intelligence Graphics, Vision, and Imaging Database Management Foundations of Computing Information Security and Cryptology Software Engineering and Programming Human-Computer Interaction. In addition, all Springer Computer Science Readers are entitled to a 20% discount on all springeronline.com book purchases The Springer Computer Science Reading Room Inside the Computer Science Reading Room you will find free content from the highly respected Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) series and a wide array of Springer journals. Each month, seven LNCS volumes and a number of journal issues are added to the Reading Room, creating an ever-growing personal library. Best of all, you never have to return the content of this library. Using the functionality offered by SpringerLink, the content is accessible via PDF or HTML files, which you can download and print. Read for Free: Become a Computer Science Reader 1) Visit www.springer.com/readingroom (Click on the link below) 2) Create your user account Click on CONTINUE under the I am a new customer section. On the following registration page, please enter a password and user name of your choice together with your e-mail address (for our e-mail confirmation to you). 3) Enter or copy and paste the SpringerToken: 2Q6x5N4GGPZbnp3 and click SUBMIT and you will be taken directly to the Reading Room If you already have an account with springeronline.com, please log in with your user name and password. At the bottom of the registration page, click on CHANGE. Then enter the above SpringerToken and click on SUBMIT. Bharat Kumar Librarian Mody Institute of Technology & Science (A Deemed University u/s 3 of the UGC Act 1956) Lakshmangarh - 332311. Disst - Sikar. Rajasthan. India. Phone No - (O) +91-1573-225001-12 Ext-283 (M) +91-9414390757

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Laura Bush announces grants for libraries
by Mailing List Manager 08 May '06

08 May '06

Date: Fri, 5 May 2006 15:58:15 +0100 (BST) From: vasanth raj <gooche_1981(a)yahoo.co.in> Dear all Bush, a former librarian and public school teacher, announced the grants at Chalmette High School in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana, where every building -- including 15 schools -- was flooded..... http://www.cnn.com/2006/EDUCATION/05/04/first.lady.libraries.ap/ Your Sincerely ------------------------- Plz re-direct Your mail to vasanthrz(a)gmail.com Vasantha Raju N --------------------------------- Yahoo! India Answers: Share what you know. Learn something new. Click here

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Lecture Notice
by Krishnamurthy M 08 May '06

08 May '06

ASSOCIATION OF BRITISH SCHOLARS ( Karnataka Chapter) and BRITISH LIBRARY Cordially invite you to the specical lecture on " INFORMATION INDUSTRY- A Global Perspective" by Shri N.V.Satyanarayana Chairman & Managing Director Informatics (India ) Ltd., Bangalore 560003 at British Library on Friday, 12th May 2006 at 4.30 p.m Prof.I.K.Ravichandra Rao Mr.K.T.Rajan Mr .R.Dhandapani I.H.Jahagirdar President Secretary Treasurer Manager -- Dr.M.Krishnamurthy Librarian Indian Statistical Institute 8th Mile Mysore Road R.V.C.E. Post Bangalore 560059 Ph:91-80-28483002/3/4/4 Fax: 91-80-28484265

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60th LIS journal in DOAJ!
by Sukhdev Singh 08 May '06

08 May '06

Forwarded Message! Date: Sat, 06 May 2006 11:01:12 -0400 From: Heather Morrison <heatherm(a)eln.bc.ca> Subject: 60th LIS journal in DOAJ! There are now 60 Library and Information Science journals listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals - an impressive list of journals to read, or to publish in! The list of LIS journals can be found at: http://www.doaj.org/ljbs?cpid=129 Welcome to new DOAJ listed journal, the Chinese / English Journal of Educational Media & Library Sciences - perhaps an appropriate symbol of this global phenomenon that is open access? Journal of Education Media & Library Sciences can be found at: http://research.dils.tku.edu.tw/joemls/ Heather G. Morrison E-LIS Editor, Canada http://eprints.rclis.org/ postscript: intriguing new title in E-LIS that may interest list readers: House of Horrors: Exorcising Electronic Resources, by U.S. E-LIS Editor Norm Medeiros, at: http://eprints.rclis.org/archive/00006168/

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Free access to bioloogical databases
by arun＠mssrf.res.in 07 May '06

07 May '06

>From Peter Suber's blog FELICS will offer OA to major biological databases Lautaro Vargas, EBI gives database boost to biotechs, Business Weekly, May 6, 2006. Excerpt: The European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI) in Cambridge is heading a £11.4 million infrastructure project to provide the scientific community with free and unrestricted access to some of the worlds most important biological databases. Titled FELICS Free European Life-science Information and Computational Services this unique electronic infrastructure project is designed to develop, enhance and interlink many of the most important data resources in Europe and widen their accessibility to the international research community. It will be funded under the Research Infrastructures action of the sixth Framework Programme (FP6) with the largest ever European award for computational infrastructures needed to support biological research....FELICS technical coordinator at the EBI, Phil Gardner, said: Our databases are accessed by many tens or even hundreds of thousands of scientists and are recognised as crucial resources by researchers worldwide....FELICS encompasses many of the EBIs familiar databases, but will also feature some crucial new activities and the group has been set several tasks and deliverables within three main areas: Networking activities; joint research activities; and transnational access activities....Graham Cameron, associate director of the EBI and coordinator of FELICS, said: Bioinformatics now pervades biology. Bioinformatics experts no longer sit between biologist and database. Researchers expect to directly access the databases and do real work. FELICS gives scientists the electronic right to roam the biological knowledge space.

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Call for Outstanding Doctoral Research Awards 2006
by Puna Das 06 May '06

06 May '06

Call for Outstanding Doctoral Research Awards 2006 The 2nd Annual Emerald/EFMD Outstanding Doctoral Research Awards 2006 Emerald Group Publishing Limited, publisher of the largest collection of international business and management journals, and the European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD), a global membership organisation with more than 500 institutional members from academia, business and public services, seek to celebrate excellence in research by sponsoring the Annual Outstanding Doctoral Research Awards. Award-winning entries will receive a cash prize of €1,500 (or other currency equivalent), a certificate and the prospect of an offer of publication in the sponsoring journal, as a full paper, or as an executive summary/research note, at the discretion of the Editor. Prize categories Two Prizes will be awarded to the winners of the following categories: Subject Area : Sponsoring Journal 1. Library studies : Library Hi Tech 2. Information science : Journal of Documentation For Details Visit: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/info/researchers/funding/doctoralawards/2006a… http://www.emeraldinsight.com/info/researchers/funding/doctoralawards/2005w… _______________________________________________________ Anup Kumar Das/ Bidyarthi Dutta/ Swapan Kumar Patra Information and Communication Society of India, New Delhi _______________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ Yahoo! India Answers: Share what you know. Learn something new. http://in.answers.yahoo.com

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Fwd: BMC in LJ Academic NewsWire
by Mallikarjuna, C 06 May '06

06 May '06

From: Ann Okerson <ann.okerson(a)yale.edu> Subject: BMC in LJ Academic NewsWire Date: Fri, 5 May 2006 18:35:55 EDT Excerpted from LJN, thursday, 4 May: Growing Pain: Editors Voice Complaints About Open Access Pioneer BioMed Central Is trouble brewing at open access pioneer BioMed Central (BMC)? This week the BMC-owned magazine The Scientist published a lengthy article suggesting that a number of editors at some of BMC's 93 independent journals are unhappy with the publisher's efforts, and several were said to be considering leaving the company altogether. BMC, a for-profit open access publisher founded in 2000, has been touted as an alternative to the commercial subscription model, which is plagued by rampant inflation. Now, as the company makes changes to its business, it is beginning to hear some familiar complaints, including over price inflation. According to The Scientist, BMC editors, who are not paid, are upset with recent increases in BMC's author processing charge (APC), and the granting of fewer APC waivers for papers whose authors cannot afford to pay the full APC. Also, last year the new BMC contract required editors to transfer journal ownership over to BMC. BMC publisher Matthew Cockerill defended the changes, including the swelling APC. In January 2002, the APC was $500. Today it is 750 pounds, about $1340. "Having published many thousands of articles since then, we now have a much better idea of what we need to charge to cover our costs and ensure financial sustainability," Cockerill told the LJ Academic Newswire. Cockerill replaced founding publisher Jan Velterop last year, after Velterop left BMC to pursue other open access-related projects. Velterop later joined Springer. Cockerill noted that the new APC was still "well within the range regarded as reasonable by funders, and compares very favorably with the charges of other publishers offering open access." APC costs aside, editors' other major complaint, according The Scientist, appears to be with BMC management, described as "uncompromising" on a range of issues facing the company. Kuan-Teh Jeang, editor-in-chief of the BMC journal Retrovirology, echoed most editors in supporting open access, but questioned BMC's execution. "We all feel open access is where we want to donate our time, energy, and reputations," Jeang told The Scientist. "What we want from BMC is a sense that they value us as equal team members." Richard Feinman, co-editor-in-chief of Nutrition and Metabolism, was more blunt in his assessment, telling The Scientist that "open access is going to move forward and if the BMC management can meet this challenge, fine, if not, they should be replaced." Cockerill seemed unfazed by the criticism saying he valued the input of editors. "As with every challenging endeavor, there will occasionally be problems along the way," he told the LJ Academic Newswire. "The editors of new open access journals have taken on an important and challenging task. We are working hard with them, to make their journals a success." As for BMC's success? Cockerill said the company was "doing well." Although BMC is still not yet profitable, he said, "Support from authors for BioMed Central has never been stronger. Submissions are at record levels. Wider support for open access, too, continues to grow each day." Copyright 2006, Library Journal -- Regards HB Mallikarjuna World Language Lab Bangalore hbmallikarjuna(a)gmail.com Mobile:09343757228 --------------------------------- Yahoo! India Answers: Share what you know. Learn something new. Click here From: Ann Okerson <ann.okerson(a)yale.edu> Subject: BMC in LJ Academic NewsWire Date: Fri, 5 May 2006 18:35:55 EDT Excerpted from LJN, thursday, 4 May: Growing Pain: Editors Voice Complaints About Open Access Pioneer BioMed Central Is trouble brewing at open access pioneer BioMed Central (BMC)? This week the BMC-owned magazine The Scientist published a lengthy article suggesting that a number of editors at some of BMC's 93 independent journals are unhappy with the publisher's efforts, and several were said to be considering leaving the company altogether. BMC, a for-profit open access publisher founded in 2000, has been touted as an alternative to the commercial subscription model, which is plagued by rampant inflation. Now, as the company makes changes to its business, it is beginning to hear some familiar complaints, including over price inflation. According to The Scientist, BMC editors, who are not paid, are upset with recent increases in BMC's author processing charge (APC), and the granting of fewer APC waivers for papers whose authors cannot afford to pay the full APC. Also, last year the new BMC contract required editors to transfer journal ownership over to BMC. BMC publisher Matthew Cockerill defended the changes, including the swelling APC. In January 2002, the APC was $500. Today it is 750 pounds, about $1340. "Having published many thousands of articles since then, we now have a much better idea of what we need to charge to cover our costs and ensure financial sustainability," Cockerill told the LJ Academic Newswire. Cockerill replaced founding publisher Jan Velterop last year, after Velterop left BMC to pursue other open access-related projects. Velterop later joined Springer. Cockerill noted that the new APC was still "well within the range regarded as reasonable by funders, and compares very favorably with the charges of other publishers offering open access." APC costs aside, editors' other major complaint, according The Scientist, appears to be with BMC management, described as "uncompromising" on a range of issues facing the company. Kuan-Teh Jeang, editor-in-chief of the BMC journal Retrovirology, echoed most editors in supporting open access, but questioned BMC's execution. "We all feel open access is where we want to donate our time, energy, and reputations," Jeang told The Scientist. "What we want from BMC is a sense that they value us as equal team members." Richard Feinman, co-editor-in-chief of Nutrition and Metabolism, was more blunt in his assessment, telling The Scientist that "open access is going to move forward and if the BMC management can meet this challenge, fine, if not, they should be replaced." Cockerill seemed unfazed by the criticism saying he valued the input of editors. "As with every challenging endeavor, there will occasionally be problems along the way," he told the LJ Academic Newswire. "The editors of new open access journals have taken on an important and challenging task. We are working hard with them, to make their journals a success." As for BMC's success? Cockerill said the company was "doing well." Although BMC is still not yet profitable, he said, "Support from authors for BioMed Central has never been stronger. Submissions are at record levels. Wider support for open access, too, continues to grow each day." Copyright 2006, Library Journal -- Regards HB Mallikarjuna World Language Lab Bangalore mailto:hbmallikarjuna@gmail.com hbmallikarjuna(a)gmail.com Mobile:09343757228 Yahoo! India Answers: Share what you know. Learn something new. http://us.rd.yahoo.com/mail/in/mailanswers/*http://in.answers.yahoo.com Click here

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"Strong Copyright + DRM + Weak Net Neutrality = Digital Dystopia?" Preprint
by Charles W. Bailey, Jr. 05 May '06

05 May '06

A preprint of my "Strong Copyright + DRM + Weak Net Neutrality = Digital Dystopia?" paper is now available. http://www.digital-scholarship.com/cwb/DigitalDystopia.pdf It will appear in Information Technology and Libraries 25, no. 3 (2006). This quote from the paper's conclusion sums it up: What this paper has said is simply this: three issues--a dramatic expansion of the scope, duration, and punitive nature of copyright laws; the ability of DRM to lock-down content in an unprecedented fashion; and the erosion of Net neutrality--bear careful scrutiny by those who believe that the Internet has fostered (and will continue to foster) a digital revolution that has resulted in an extraordinary explosion of innovation, creativity, and information dissemination. These issues may well determine whether the much-touted "information superhighway" lives up to its promise or simply becomes the "information toll road" of the future, ironically resembling the pre-Internet online services of the past. For those who want a longer preview of the paper, here's the introduction: Blogs. Digital photo and video sharing. Podcasts. Rip/Mix/Burn. Tagging. Vlogs. Wikis. These buzzwords point to a fundamental social change fueled by cheap PCs and servers, the Internet and its local wired/wireless feeder networks, and powerful, low-cost software: citizens have morphed from passive media consumers to digital media producers and publishers. Libraries and scholars have their own set of buzz words: digital libraries, digital presses, e-prints, institutional repositories, and open access journals to name a few. They connote the same kind of change: a democratization of publishing and media production using digital technology. It appears that we are on the brink of an exciting new era of Internet innovation: a kind of digital utopia. Dr. Gary Flake of Microsoft has provided one striking vision of what could be (with a commercial twist) in a presentation entitled "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Imminent Internet Singularity," and there are many other visions of possible future Internet advances. When did this metamorphosis begin? It depends on who you ask. Let's say the late 1980's, when the Internet began to get serious traction and an early flowering of noncommercial digital publishing occurred. In the subsequent twenty-odd years, publishing and media production went from being highly centralized, capital-intensive analog activities with limited and well-defined distribution channels to being diffuse, relatively low-cost digital activities with the global Internet as their distribution medium. Not to say that print and conventional media are dead, of course, but it is clear that their era of dominance is waning. The future is digital. Nor is it to say that entertainment companies (e.g., film, music, radio, and television companies) and information companies (e.g., book, database, and serial publishers) have ceded the digital content battlefield to the upstarts. Quite the contrary. High-quality thousand-page-per-volume scientific journals and Hollywood blockbusters cannot be produced for pennies, even with digital wizardry. Information and entertainment companies still have an important role to play, and, even if they didn't, they hold the copyrights to a significant chunk of our cultural heritage. Entertainment and information companies have understood for some time that they must adopt to the digital environment or die, but this change has not always been easy, especially when it involves concocting and embracing new business models. Nonetheless, they intend to thrive and prosper--and to do whatever it takes to succeed. As they should, since they have an obligation to their shareholders to do so. The thing about the future is that it is rooted in the past. Culture, even digital culture, builds on what has gone before. Unconstrained access to past works helps determine the richness of future works. Inversely, when past works are inaccessible except to a privileged minority, it impoverishes future works. This brings us to a second trend that stands in opposition to the first. Put simply, it is the view that intellectual works are "property"; that this property should be protected with the full force of civil and criminal law; that creators have perpetual, transferable property rights; and that contracts, rather than copyright law, should govern the use of intellectual works. A third trend is also at play: the growing use of Digital Rights Management (DRM) technologies. When intellectual works were in paper form (or other tangible forms), they could only be controlled at the object-ownership or object-access levels (a library controlling the circulation of a copy of a book is an example of the second case). Physical possession of a work, such as a book, meant that the user had full use of it (e.g., the user could read the entire book and photocopy pages from it). When works are in digital form and they are protected by some types of DRM, this may no longer true. For example, a user may only be able to view a single chapter from a DRM-protected e-book and may not be able to print it. The fourth and final trend deals with how the Internet functions at its most fundamental level. The Internet was designed to be content, application, and hardware "neutral." As long as certain standards were met, the network did not discriminate. One type of content was not given preferential delivery speed over another. One type of content was not charged for delivery while another wasn't. One type of content was not blocked (at least by the network) while another wasn't. In recent years, "network neutrality" has come under attack. The collision of these trends has begun in courts, legislatures, and the marketplace. It is far from over. As we shall see, it's outcome will determine what the future of digital culture looks like. -- Best Regards, Charles Charles W. Bailey, Jr., Assistant Dean for Digital Library Planning and Development, University of Houston Libraries E-Mail: cbailey(a)digital-scholarship.com Publications: http://www.digital-scholarship.com/ (Provides access to DigitalKoans, Open Access Bibliography, Open Access Webliography, Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography, Scholarly Electronic Publishing Weblog, and others)

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Open access to data
by Mailing List Manager 05 May '06

05 May '06

Date: Fri, 5 May 2006 15:05:45 +0530 From: Subbiah Arunachalam <arun(a)mssrf.res.in> >From Peter Suber's blog More on OA to publicly-funded data in the UK Charles Arthur, Should government charge ... and how much? The Guardian, May 4, 2006. Excerpt: A week is a long time in politics. But six years, it seems, is not quite enough time in the civil service to carry out a study into the economic benefits of free data. In the Treasury's Spending Review in 2000, an interesting part discussed the knowledge economy - in particular whether public organisations should charge for their data, and if so, how much. [The report concludes that] some of the data generated is surplus to the running of government; it's simply there to generate profits, to offset the running costs of various departments. "As a result," the authors add, "the government is able, without abusing the dominant position it has in particular markets, to use pricing strategies which enable it to recoup at least some of the fixed costs of production." But that begs an important question that the Free Our Data campaign - which argues that government agencies should provide their data to the public for free - would like to see resolved.... But the authors then admit it's unclear how government-generated data should be priced. After discussing pricing models, they note the suggestion "that demand would grow rapidly in response to lower prices ... and as basic information is repackaged in innovative ways. The issue needs further empirical work." That is, an economist should see whether cheaper data boosts the economy. So, six years on, has the Treasury followed up its own recommendation and done a study on the effect of data pricing? No, the Treasury told us....Perhaps they'll be interested by a new paper produced by the OECD this week examining public sector content, which notes huge disparities in market size and access between the UK, Europe and other countries.

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ISO OKs Open Document Format as Standard
by Farooque Shaheen 05 May '06

05 May '06

Hi all, The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has given its ?sweeping approval? to the OpenDocument Format (ODF) as an international standard for retaining and exchanging digital office documents, according to a press release from the ODF Alliance, a group of entities dedicated to improving the management of electronic government documents. Approval of the OpenDocument Format by ISO marks an important milestone in the effort to help governments solve the very real problem of finding a better way to preserve, access and control their documents now and in the future,? Marcich, said in the release. ?There?s no doubt that this broad vote of support will serve as a springboard for adoption and use of the ODF around the world.? http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=20823 Thanks & Regards, Farooque Shaheen, Caritor India Pvt Ltd. Tel. 080-26678388 # 4105 Hi all, The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has given its “sweeping approval” to the OpenDocument Format (ODF) as an international standard for retaining and exchanging digital office documents, according to a press release from the ODF Alliance, a group of entities dedicated to improving the management of electronic government documents. Approval of the OpenDocument Format by ISO marks an important milestone in the effort to help governments solve the very real problem of finding a better way to preserve, access and control their documents now and in the future,” Marcich, said in the release. “There’s no doubt that this broad vote of support will serve as a springboard for adoption and use of the ODF around the world.” http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=20823 Thanks & Regards, Farooque Shaheen, Caritor India Pvt Ltd. Tel. 080-26678388 # 4105

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