The Source: news about digital libraries and library innovations from around the web

Introducing The Source


Connecting to the world's collections: Making the case for conservation and preservation of our cultural heritage (Note: PDF)

From the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) website

This report is based on a seminar held in Salzburg, Austria, October 28-November 1, 2009, which explored global themes related to conservation and preservation, including international needs, issues, perspectives, and accomplishments. The report includes practical recommendations to ensure optimal collections conservation worldwide.
The session combined presentations by leading experts in conservation and preservation throughout the world with small working groups tasked to make recommendations for future action in key areas, including emergency preparedness, education and training, public awareness, new preservation approaches, and assessment and planning.


Sustainable economics for a digital planet: Ensuring long-term access to digital information (Note: PDF)

From the Blue Robbon Task Force website

Addressing one of the most urgent societal challenges of the Information Age - ensuring that valued digital information will be accessible not just today, but in the future - requires solutions that are at least as much economic and social as technical, according to this report, the result of a two-year effort focusing on the critical economic challenges of preserving an ever-increasing amount of information in a world gone digital.


2009 Librarian e-Book survey (Note: PDF)

From the HighWire Press, Stanford University, website

This survey of librarians’ attitudes and practices related to e-books was conducted as part of an ongoing exploration of the fast-growing scholarly e-book market. The results and accompanying analysis draw together the input of 138 librarians from 13 countries. The responses underscore the significant growth librarians expect in e-book acquisitions and point to their current preferences and possible trends in this evolving area. The report espouses some familiar and consistent themes:

• Simplicity and ease of use seem more important than sophisticated end-user features
• Users tend to discover e-books through both the library catalogue and search engines
• While users prefer PDFs, format preference will likely change as technology changes
• DRM seems to hinder e-book use for library patrons; ability to print is essential
• The most popular business model for librarians is purchase with perpetual access
  

The Academic Library’s impact on student persistence (Note: PDF)

From the American Library Association (ALA) website

What impact does the academic library have on student persistence? This study explores the relationship between traditional library input and output measures of staff, collections, use, and services with fall-to-fall retention and six-year graduation rates at Association of Research Libraries member libraries. When controlling for race/ethnicity and socio-economic status, a linear regression finds that a change in the ratio of library professional staff to students predicts a statistically significant positive relationship with both retention and graduation rates.


The Future of Research and the Research Library (Note: PDF)

From the Knowledge Exchange website

This recent report seeks to answer the following questions:

• Is there a future for the research library?
• Which possible roles can the research library adopt?
• Can we draw a roadmap to help us move towards a new desired future?
  

The report presents a very digestible history of the research library, which has several types of users and usage. Increasingly, libraries have users who are not aware of the functions of the library. The researcher reading papers in an e-journal, access to which is provided by a library, is not necessarily noticing the essential function of the library. Indirect usage is also important when a function is performed based essentially on knowledge and information provided through the available services of a research library.


Capture and Release: Digital cameras in the Reading Room (Note: PDF)

From the OCLC website

This report presents a core of suggested practices for allowing the use of digital cameras in special collections reading rooms. Digital cameras and other mobile capture devices are revolutionising special collections reading rooms and the research process, but at the same time are being wrongly framed as a threat or a challenge for some repositories to remain relevant. While some librarians and archivists have resisted digital cameras, others have embraced them - and rightfully so. Researchers, repositories, and collection materials can reap undeniable benefits from using digital cameras. In addition, digital cameras can help librarians and archivists achieve their fundamental goals of improving conditions for their collections materials, facilitating greater research economically and efficiently, and resolving competing demands for resources and maximizing the productivity of their staff.


Web 3.0 promises change for libraries

From the Research Information website

The latest developments in web technology will undoubtedly continue to affect libraries. David Stuart, an independent web analyst and consultant, looks at some of the technology on the horizon.