oct04a.indd


N e w s  f r o m  t h e  F i e l d  Stephanie Orphan 

OCLC to acquire QuestionPoint 
OCLC’s QuestionPoint virtual reference ser­
vice will combine with the Metropolitan Co­
operative Library System’s 24/7 Reference 
through OCLC’s acquisition of the assets of 
24/7 Reference. 

QuestionPoint, developed by OCLC and 
the Library of Congress, is supported by a 
global network of cooperating libraries and li­
brarians and is used by more than 1,000 librar­
ies in 20 countries. Its searchable Knowledge 
Base has grown to more than 7,000 active 
question­and­answer pairs. 24/7 Reference is 
a round­the­clock reference cooperative serv­
ing 500 libraries. The combined services will 
build on the unique benefits and features of 
each service, such as QuestionPoint’s Global 
Reference Network and 24/7 Reference’s 
cooperative reference coverage. 

BCR partners with Collaborative Digiti­
zation Program 
The Bibliographic Center for Research (BCR), 
the multistate library cooperative serving li­
braries throughout the western United States, 
has partnered with the Collaborative Digitiza­
tion Program (CDP) to offer training to BCR 
member libraries. CDP is a collaborative ini­
tiative involving libraries, archives, historical 
societies, and museums in the western United 
States known for its training program, digiti­
zation best practices, and 
metadata tools. Through 
the partnership, BCR will 
promote and provide 
infrastructure for CDP’s 
digitization workshops, 
with CDP providing train­
ers and subject expertise. 
BCR member libraries 
will receive instruction 
in digital imaging and 
related issues, as well as 
information related to 
Dublin Core metadata, 
digital audio, and teach­
ing with digitized primary 
sources. 

Taxpayers support open access 
A coalition of public interest groups has 
formed the Alliance for Taxpayer Access, 
which will urge the National Institutes of 
Health (NIH) to ensure that peer­reviewed 
articles on taxpayer­funded research at NIH 
become available through open access pub­
lishing. The alliance is an informal coalition 
of libraries, patient and health policy advo­
cates, and other stakeholders who support 
reforms to make publicly funded biomedical 
research accessible to the public. 

In August, ACRL, a member of the alliance, 
sent a letter to NIH on behalf of its more 
than 11,000 personal members endorsing the 
proposal that NIH provide open access to its 
funded research through PubMed Central. 

Oxford Journals signs hosting agree­
ment with Highwire Press 
Oxford Journals, part of Oxford University 
Press (OUP), has signed an agreement for 
Stanford University’s HighWire Press to host 
its journals collection, beginning January 
2005. HighWire Press currently hosts the 
majority of OUP’s science, technology, and 
medicine journals. The addition of the com­
plete Oxford Journals collection broadens 
the subject areas represented to include hu­
manities and social science journals. Oxford 
Journals publishes more than 180 journals, 

C&RL News  October 2004 / 499 



including JNCI  (Journal of the National 
Cancer Institute), English Historical Review, 
and the Review of Financial Studies. 

Univ. of South Florida partners with 
Addis Ababa University 
The University of South Florida (USF) Librar­
ies is partnering with Addis Ababa Univer­
sity (AAU) to make rare historical materials 
and contemporary research from Ethiopia 
available electronically to increase access to 
materials to researchers in that country. USF 
Libraries staff have created a user­friendly, 
expandable database structure that includes 

functions to request and submit documents. 
Staff spent a month in Ethiopia over the 
summer to train staff at AAU. The idea for 
the project came about through discussions 
between a USF graduate student who is a 
native of Ethiopia and staff members at the 
library. 

Cornell to distribute open source pub­
lishing system 
Cornell University Library is developing an 
open source publication management sys­
tem that will provide authors and publishers 
with an affordable way to publish scholarly 

Registration for ACRL’s 12th National Conference is now open! 

Online registration and housing for the 
ACRL 12th National Conference is avail­
able at www.acrl.org/minneapolis. Regis­
ter early and take advantage of early­bird 
registration discounts of more than 20 
percent. 

The conference, “Currents and Conver­
gence: Navigating the Rivers of Change,” 
will be held in Minneapolis, April 7–10, 
2005. It offers more than 200 peer­reviewed 
programs that reflect the dynamics and 
diversity of our profession. Keep pace with 
the latest library research and techniques 
during contributed papers, and panel 
and workshop sessions. Exchange ideas 
with your colleagues at poster sessions 
and discuss hot topics during roundtable 
discussions. 

Keynote sessions 
• Opening Keynote Session: William J. 
Mitchell, Professor of Architecture and 
Media Arts and Sciences, Academic Head 
of Media Arts and Sciences, Massachusetts 
Institute of Technology 

Learn about changes brought about 
by new communication and information 
technologies and find out what this means 
for libraries and their relationships to digital 
networks. 

• Keynote Luncheon: “Women of Mys­
tery”: Carolina Garcia­Aguilera, J. A. Jance, 
and Valerie Wilson Wesley. Moderator: 
Liane Hansen, National Public Radio 

Gain a rare peek into the minds of these 
female mystery authors and participate in 

an open discussion about their works in a 
social context. 

• Closing Keynote Session: Sylvia 
Hurtado, Ph.D., Professor and Director, 
Higher Education Research Institute, Gradu­
ate School of Education and Information 
Sciences, UCLA 

Examine post­September 11 changes in 
student bodies and campuses nationwide 
and find out how colleges and universities 
are preparing students to participate in a 
diverse democracy. 

Explore topics in­depth at a preconfer­
ence 
Attend a preconference and return to your 
library with tips, tools, and new ways of 
thinking. Complete descriptions and learn­
ing outcomes are online at www.acrl.org/ 
minneapolis. 

Learn about the latest products and 
services 
Explore the exhibits and learn about cut­
ting­edge products, publications, tools, 
and services available to academic and re­
search librarians. 

Bookmark the ACRL conference Web 
site! 
For complete details about the conference 
and online registration and housing forms, 
visit the ACRL National Conference Web site 
at www.acrl.org/minneapolis. Questions 
about the conference? Contact acrl@ala.org 
or call (800) 545­2433, ext. 2515. 

500 / C&RL News  October 2004 

mailto:acrl@ala.org
www.acrl.org/minneapolis
http:www.acrl.org
www.acrl.org/minneapolis


research on the Web. The library will be 
making its DPubS software available to 
libraries, university presses, and other in­
dependent publishers to expand opportu­
nities for communication among scholars. 
DPubS was originally created for Project 
Euclid, an initiative designed to help inde­
pendent publishers of mathematics and sta­
tistics journals make the transition to elec­
tronic publishing. Through a grant from 
the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the 
software will be re­engineered as a gen­
eral­purpose platform to support electronic 
publishing of scholarly literature in diverse 
fields. DPubS will support peer review, 
have extensive administrative functionality, 
and will provide interoperability with other 
open source repository systems. 

Checkpoint’s RFID system selected by 
Southern Indiana and NY Institute of 
Technology 
Checkpoint Systems, a leading provider of 
radio frequency identification (RFID) tech­
nology to libraries, has been selected to 
install its Intelligent Library System at the 
University of Southern Indiana’s David L. 
Rice Library and the New York Institute of 
Technology. The system functions through 
a unique RFID “circulation circuit,” which 
operates within its own local area network 
of RFID readers and can process up to 20 
items a second. It also features a handheld 
“inventory wand” that allows for automatic 
updates to the library’s database regarding 
the existence and location of items. 

Nature Publishing launches archives 
Nature Publishing Group has launched the 
Nature research journal archive collection 
online. The collection provides online ac­
cess to every issue of Nature Biotechnol­
ogy, Nature Genetics, Nature Medicine, and 
Nature Structural & Molecular Biology pub­
lished from volume 1 issue 1 to April 1998, 
previously only available in print archives. 
The collection contains more than 11,000 ar­
ticles from across the four journals. Articles 
are published in PDF, with HTML versions 
of abstracts and reference lists. Access to the 
articles in the archive is available to users 
via a site license. Users without a site license 
may purchase individual articles. 

Submit a poster session for the 
ACRL 12th National Conference! 

The deadline for poster session submis­
sion is November 8, 2004. Poster sessions 
are informal presentations featuring suc­
cessful solutions to problems and unique 
and innovative library­based projects 
with important lessons for the academic 
and research library community. This is 
a great way to get noticed! 

Visit the ACRL National Conference 
Web site at www.acrl.org/minneapolis for 
further details. 

Princeton creates 19th­century libraries 
database 
Researchers at Princeton University have cre­
ated a database of 10,000 libraries in existence 
in the United States before the last quarter of 
the 19th century. The keyword­searchable, 
interactive database contains data that previ­
ously existed only on punched cards and is 
supplemented by an electronic file of the origi­
nal cards. Researchers can look up a library by 
name, get a list of libraries by location, or ob­
tain a list of libraries based on type or date of 
founding. Users are encouraged to contribute 
information that can be added to the records. 
The database is part of larger effort, called the 
Davies Project, to increase knowledge about 
American university libraries and their collec­
tions. The database is available online at www. 
princeton.edu/~davpro. 

Naxos Digital Services enters agreement 
with PALINET 
Through an agreement with Naxos Digital 
Services, members of the regional library 
network PALINET can now subscribe to 
Naxos Music Library and Naxos Spoken 
Word Library through a consortial arrange­
ment. PALINET serves libraries and cultural 
institutions in Delaware, Maryland, New 
Jersey, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and 
neighboring states, and is OCLC’s mid­At­
lantic region service provider. Naxos Music 
Library provides online listening for libraries 
to more than 80,000 tracks and includes full 
liner notes. Newly launched Naxos Spoken 
Word Library offers more than 275 complete 
audiobooks, which stream from the Naxos 
servers with accompanying texts. 

C&RL News  October 2004 / 501 



Wilson introduces Science Full Text 
Select 
H.W. Wilson has added Science Full Text 
Select to WilsonWeb. The new database 
combines the full­text content of all Wilson 
science databases, with articles from 320 
sources, and includes graphical content as 
PDF page images. Databases included are 
Applied Science and Technology Full Text, 
Biological & Agricultural Index Plus, and 
General Science Full Text. Additional ar­
ticles are available from the Readers’ Guide 
and Wilson OmniFile databases. 

Swets joins Ingenta’s subscription acti­
vation initiative 
Swets Information Services has joined In­
genta’s subscription activation initiative, 
designed to simplify the online access of e­
journals for libraries that currently use www. 
ingenta.com. Swets now sends subscription 
data directly through to Ingenta, allowing 
libraries seamless, preconfigured access to 
the journals to which they subscribe. Librar­
ies’ access is reconciled automatically using 
Ingenta’s authentication system. 

Correction 

In the July/August 2004 issue of C&RL 
News, the Internet Resources article, 
“The electoral college, political parties, 
and elections,” erroneously identifi ed the 
Web site for the Greens/Green Party USA 
as the official site of the Green Party. The 
correct Web site for the official Green Par­
ty of the United States is www.gp.org. 

The editors regret the error. 

Classical International to offer BMG 
Classics 
Classical International (CI) and BMG Classics 
have entered into a license agreement that will 
make CI’s Classical Music Library (CML) the fi rst 
library service to offer music from the interna­
tional label. BMG Classics features labels such 
as RCA Red Seal, Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, 
and Arte Nova. Through the agreement, BMG 
will provide access to more than 40,0000 tracks 
from their catalogs and CML will feature new 
releases from all three labels every month. The 
recordings will be available only to CML sub­
scriber libraries in the United States. 

ACRL seeks applicants for Immersion ‘05 

Applications for ACRL’s Institute for Infor­
mation Literacy Immersion ’05 program 
are now being accepted. Whether your 
institution is just beginning to think about 
implementing an information literacy com­
ponent or whether you have a program 
well underway, Immersion ’05 will provide 
you with the intellectual tools and practical 
techniques to help your institution build or 
enhance its instruction program.  

Immersion ’05 will be held at Eckerd 
College in St. Petersburg, Florida, July 29 
–August 3, 2005. Participation is limited to 
90 to ensure an environment that fosters 
group interaction and active participation. 
Acceptance to the Immersion Program is 
competitive. Complete details about the 
program, including application materials 
,are online at www.acrl.org.events (click 
Immersion ’05). The deadline to apply is 
December 6, 2004. 

Immersion ’05 program sessions will fall 
into two separate tracks: 

Teacher Track. This track focuses on 
individual development for those who are 
interested in enhancing, refreshing, or ex­
tending their individual instruction skills. 
Curriculum includes classroom techniques, 
learning theory, leadership, and assess­
ment framed in the context of information 
literacy. 

Program Track. This track focuses 
on developing, integrating, and managing 
institutional and programmatic information 
literacy programs. Participants selected for 
the Program Track will develop individual 
case studies in advance of the Immersion 
program. Change dynamics, systems think­
ing, institutional outcomes assessment, 
scalability, and the integration of teaching, 
learning, and technology will be brought to 
bear on analyzing the various programmatic 
challenges presented in the case studies. 

Visit www.acrl.org/events for more de­
tails. Questions? Contact acrl@ala.org or call 
(800) 545­2433, ext. 2515. 

502 / C&RL News  October 2004 

mailto:acrl@ala.org
www.acrl.org/events
www.acrl.org.events
http:ingenta.com