march08a.indd David Free N e w s f r o m t h e F i e l d Short videos showcase student perspectives on information sharing The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Re­ sources Coalition recently announced the winners of the first SPARKY Awards. The 2007 contest called on entrants to imagina­ tively illustrate in a short video the value of sharing ideas and information of all kinds. The three winning entries offer a glimpse of student views on the importance of ac­ cess to information, and feature an animated look at the most basic benefits of sharing, a film noir­style crime investigation using the Internet, and a tongue­in­cheek documen­ tary on Open Access. The winners are: F i r s t P l a c e : “ S h a r e , ” w w w . b l i p . t v /file/488550, written and directed by Habib Yazdi, University of North Carolina at Cha­ pel Hill. First Runner Up: “Pri Vetai: Private Eye,” www.blip.tv/file/512440, directed by Tommy McCauley and Max Silver, Carleton College. Second Runner Up: “An Open Access Manifesto,” www.blip.tv/fi le/517300, writ­ ten and directed by Romel Espinel and Josh Hadro, Pratt Institute. Each of the winning entries is available under a Creative Commons use license. For more details on the contest, including informa­ tion on the 2008 competition, see the SPARKY Awards Web site at sparkyawards.org. Vanderbilt debuts East African music archive Three years ago, Vanderbilt University eth­ nomusicologist Greg Barz realized that American popular culture was sweeping Africa and could very well threaten centu­ ries­old musical traditions. He traveled to Uganda and Kenya to begin archiving music and performances before they disappeared forever. Barz’s pilot program set the founda­ tion for the Digital Collection of East African Recordings and helped launch the creation of the Global Music Archive at the Anne Pot­ ter Wilson Music Library in Vanderbilt’s Blair School of Music. The Digital Collection of East African Recordings, the first in a series of databases in the Global Music Archive, is a streaming audio archive of East African music. The archive consists of more than 2,000 musical performances, most of which were recorded in the field by East African musician Centurio Balikoowa. All artists represented in the ar­ chive provide written consent, allowing Van­ derbilt to share their music with the world. “We are committed to the recording and dissemination of this music to make it globally accessible, not only to ethnomusicologists but to anyone with an interest in the music and culture of East Africa,” said Holling Smith­ Borne, director of the Anne Potter Wilson Music Library and co­curator of the Global Music Archive with Barz. “Research and documentation on the music of East Africa has been patchy, especially compared to other regions in Africa. This database adds significant content to the documentation of the musical traditions in East Africa.” The collection can be accessed through the Global Music Archive Web site at www. globalmusicarchive.org. Real Player is re­ quired to stream the sound files, which vary in length from 45 seconds to one hour. Files in the archive are not available for download. University of Kansas provides open e-journal access Scholar Services, a program of Information Services at the University of Kansas (KU), has made two KU­based scholarly journals freely available online to readers and re­ searchers throughout the world, thanks to a new program designed to support the online distribution of campus publications. Biodiversity Informatics and back­issues of Latin American Theater Review (LATR) are now available at journals.ku.edu. Launched in 2004, Biodiversity Informatics is an open access, electronic journal focus­ ing on the analysis of information regarding biological diversity. LATR is published twice per year by KU’s Department of Spanish and Portuguese and the Center of Latin American Studies. Founded in 1967, LATR covers all aspects of Latina/o and Latin American theatre and performance. The new online version of LATR will provide free access to the entire C&RL News March 2008 130 http:journals.ku.edu http:globalmusicarchive.org http:sparkyawards.org www.blip.tv/fi www.blip.tv/file/512440 http:www.blip.tv back­run up to 2002, which includes more than 1,000 scholarly articles, news items, theater schedules, and book and performance reviews. “Supporting open access to this content is a way of breaking down some of the barriers to getting this material to as many people as possible and is an example of the evolv­ ing role for academic libraries in delivering content to users,” said Brian Rosenblum, KU scholarly digital initiatives librarian. New LexisNexis off erings Two new product offerings, Statistical Da­ taSets and Congressional Record Permanent Digital Collection, are now available from LexisNexis. Statistical DataSets enables researchers to build statistical tables from multiple sources in a single interface. This online interactive statistical solution aggregates more than 100 licensed and public domain datasets and makes 750 million data points accessible within a single interface. Users scan content, select subjects and criteria, and view data in side­by­side tables and charts. The new offering can be added to the LexisNexis Sta­ tistical service or it can be accessed through a standalone subscription. Congressional Record Permanent Digital Collection provides access to more than 200 years of Congressional proceedings and debates through a single search interface. LexisNexis users whose institutions have access to other LexisNexis Congressional Digital Collection content, such as hearings, congressional prints, CRS reports, and the Serial Set, will be able to retrieve combined results from the Congressional Record and all the other sources with a single search. New functionality includes the ability to link from the Congressional Record to cited legislative reports, hearings, and bill texts. The four titles included in the new collec­ tion, the Congressional Record (1873–to date), the Annals of Congress (1789–1824), the Register of Debates (1824–1837), and the Congressional Globe (1833–1873), provide researchers with access to primary sources in U.S. history, public policy, business and economics, politics, international relations, sociology, and the law. Marquette University Libraries digitize The Indian Sentinel Marquette University’s Raynor Memorial Libraries’ newest digital collection, The In­ dian Sentinel, provides the full run of the magazine from 1902 to 1962. The Indian Sentinel magazine was the offi cial publica­ tion of the Society for the Preservation of the Faith among Indian Children, a subsidiary fundraising organization to the Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions (BCIM) established in 1901. The Indian Sentinel features articles about Native Americans across the United States and their evangelization by the Catho­ lic Church. First­hand accounts by lifelong missionaries were often illustrated with pho­ tographs. Also featured are articles, essays, and letters by Native Americans. Marquette’s Libraries have housed the archives for the past 30 years. 2008 National Library Legislative Day Be one of the hundreds of library supporters from all across the country visiting Members of Congress to share stories about libraries in your communities and to talk about the needs and accomplishments of libraries in your area during the 2008 National Library Legislative Day.The event will be held from May 13–14, 2008, in Washington, D.C. More information on events, hotel ac­ commodations, and registration is available at www.ala.org/ala/washoff/washevents /nlld/nlld2008.cfm.The registration dead­ line is Friday,April 4, 2008. W h i l e i n Wa s h i n g t o n , j o i n y o u r a c a d e m i c a n d r e s e a rch l i b r a r y c o l ­ leagues at a special ACRL luncheon on Tuesday, May 13, 2008, at the Holiday Inn on the Hill. RSVP for the compli­ mentar y luncheon b y Monday, Apr il 28, 2008, at mar vin.foresightint.com /surveys/Tier1Survey/ACRL/242. If you can’t make it to Washington, par­ ticipate in “Virtual Legislative Day.” Find out how at www.ala.org/ala/washoff/wa­ shevents/nlld/virtuallibrarylegislativeday /vlld.cfm. March 2008 131 C&RL News Access The Indian Sentinel online at digitalmarquette.cdmhost.com/IS /index.html. Midwest teachers gain access to free Library of Congress resources The Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources program at Il­ linois State University’s (ISU) Milner Library was selected as one of four sites to pilot test a regional model for the Library of Congress. The 15­ month pilot program will provide free or low­cost professional develop­ ment opportunities for educators in 11 Midwest states, including Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ne­ braska, Ohio, and Wisconsin. The Midwest Regional Center for Teaching with Primary Sources was created at Milner Library to expand the Library of Congress’ professional development program to the Midwest. “The challenge for this project will be to gain a foothold in all eleven states in such a short time,” said Richard Satchwell, director of the Midwest Center for Teaching with Primary Sources. The program’s goal is to train K–16 educators to find and integrate the free digital primary sources (more than 10.5 million) found at the Library of Congress, the world’s largest library. The center will provide sub­awards to interested individuals, institutions of higher education, professional development initia­ tives, library systems, and school districts from the 11­state region to provide profes­ sional development opportunities in their state. Training will be provided at ISU in the spring of 2008, followed by additional training of teachers and library information specialists throughout the Midwest during summer 2008. The pilot program will provide feedback and data to the Library of Congress to inform their decision to continue or modify their efforts to provide professional development to a wide and varied audience. Additional pilot sites are located in Colorado and Penn­ sylvania. To find out more, visit www.mlb. ilstu.edu/tps. I can’t live without . . . Produced by the University of Michigan’s Documents Center, this is one of the most amaz­ ing Web research sites anywhere. While a few of the resources are only available to UM students, most links allow access to anyone looking for statistics. The site is a jewel of organization and clarity. There are 24 broad subject categories to choose from. Once you’ve made your choice, you’re taken to an alphabetical list of links in that subject area complete with descriptions of what you’ll find at each site. Another option for searching is a sidebar with an alphabetical subject index broken down into categories that refl ect the way students might actually ask for informa­ tion. Not only is the site authoritative, it is easy for students to navigate and successfully acquire the information they need. —Eunice Teel, North Central Michigan College . . . Statistical Resources on the Web www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/stats.html ACRL Instruction Section updates publication The ACRL Instruction Section’s Research and Scholarship Committee has announced an update to one of its online publications, “A Bibliography of Citations Related to the Research Agenda for Library Instruction and Information Literacy.” The update was col­ laboratively authored by 2006–2007 Com­ mittee members Nancy Dewald, Wendy Holliday, Merinda McLure (chair), Karen Munro (intern), Barbara Petersohn, and Rob Withers. Travis Dolence, 2007–2008 commit­ tee intern, also assisted with publishing the update. Created as a supplement to the “Research Agenda for Library Instruction and Informa­ tion Literacy,” the bibliography lists publica­ tions that advance librarians’ knowledge of issues related to learners, teaching, organi­ zational context, and assessment. This 2007 revision of the bibliography includes citations to select English­language, scholarly books, and peer­reviewed journal articles published in 1997 or later. The updated publication may be found at www.ala.org/ala/acrlbucket/is/iscommittees /webpages/research/bibcitations.cfm. C&RL News March 2008 132 www.ala.org/ala/acrlbucket/is/iscommittees www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/stats.html Give your feedback on ACRL annual assumptions The ACRL Research Planning and Review Committee is encouraging broad feedback from members on the future of academic and research libraries through the use of a Web­based survey instrument avail­ able at marvin.foresightint.com/surveys /Tier1Survey/ACRL/231. The survey encourages members to consider the ACRL assumptions on the future of academic libraries and emer­ gent issues identified in the 2007 ACRL Environmental Scan. The Environmental Scan is available online at www.acrl.org /ala/acrl/acrlpubs/whitepapers/Environ­ mental_Scan_2.pdf. All ACRL members are encouraged to complete the survey, which will remain online and available to respondents until March 30, 2008. National Criminal Justice Reference Service Abstracts joins EBSCOhost EBSCO recently announced the addition of National Criminal Justice Reference Service Abstracts, created by the National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS) to the EBSCOhost platform. The database contains summaries of more than 190,000 criminal justice, juvenile justice, and substance abuse resources covering corrections, courts, crime statistics, domestic preparedness, drugs, ju­ venile justice, law enforcement, and victims. The collection features U.S. and international publications, including citations for federal, state, and local government reports; books; research reports; journal articles; audiovisu­ al presentations; and unpublished research. The content in the database dates from 1970 to the present. Historical epidemiology at Harvard Harvard University recently launched a new digital library collection entitled “Contagion: Historical Views of Diseases and Epidemics.” Created by the Harvard University Library’s Open Collections Program, the new collec­ tion offers valuable insights into the history of medicine and a historical context for cur­ rent epidemiology, and also acts as a unique social­history resource for students of many ages and disciplines. The collection contrib­ utes to the understanding of the global, so­ cial­history, and public­policy implications of disease, and it offers important historical perspectives on the science and the public policy of epidemiology today. Materials in the collection include digi­ tized copies of books, serials, pamphlets, incunabula, and manuscripts, many of which contain unique visual materials, such as plates, engravings, maps, charts, broadsides, and other illustrations. Library materials are supplemented by explanatory pages that introduce concepts related to diseases and epidemics, historical approaches to medicine, and a selection of biographical information. The collection also includes materials from the Center for the History of Medicine Visit the online collection at ocp.hul. harvard.edu/contagion. 2008 ACRL vice-president/president elect candidates podcast Trying to choose your candidate for ACRL vice­president/president elect in the up­ coming election? In the latest ACRL pod­ cast, College & Research Libraries News editor­in­chief David Free interviews the 2008 candidates, Lori Goetsch (Kansas State University) and Janice Simmons­Wel­ burn (Marquette University). Goetsch and Simmons­Welburn discuss two important issues facing the academic and research library community and outline their plans for ACRL. The podcast is available on the new ACRL Insider blog at www.acrl.ala.org /acrlinsider/2008/02/11/acrl­podcast­2008­ vice­president­president­elect­candidates ­talk/. C&RL News RSS Cover art, article links, and other valuable information from C&RL News is now avail­ able by subscribing to our new RSS feed. Point your Web browser to feeds.feed­ burner.com/candrlnews, and add our feed to your favorite reader, such as Bloglines or Google Reader. March 2008 133 C&RL News http:www.acrl.ala.org http:www.acrl.org