Book review - The Library: A World History

Jan Gardner in the Boston Globe writes a very enjoyable book review of a new book, The Library: A World History, by James W.P. Campbell, with photographs by Will Pryce. Campbell is an architectural historian, and visited libraries around the world. He also covers libraries through history, so the book is a travelogue and a historical guide as well, to great and interesting libraries. The book features quaint, beautiful library features, secret doors, amazing books, wonderful building features and settings.

Among the libraries in New England featured that I know are the wonderful Thomas Crane public library in Quincy, which is a beautiful place. The very beautiful old building is, I think, what the book features, but they have added a new addition which skillfully references the style of the original while including a soaring atrium and modern amenities. The images above are the Thomas Crane Library, both of the original building. These pictures are from the Crane Library website.

There is also the fabulous Beinecke Rare Books Library at Yale, which is an astounding building. Outside, it it looks almost forbidding with a windowless exterior of Vermont marble slabs held in frames of white concrete. But inside, if it's a sunny day, the light shines through the marble, in a quite astounding way. The two images of the Beinecke are from the Globe article and they credit the pictures to Will Pryce, so they must be from the book.

Nobel prize winner declares boycott of major science journals

The British newspaper, The Guardian, reported Dec. 9, 2013 that U.S. physiology/medicine Nobelist Randy Schekman, a biology professor of University of California, Berkeley, has announced that he will boycott publishing in Nature, Cell and Science. Dr. Schekman writes directly to the public about the problem as he sees it, in the pages of The Guardian.

1. The high profile journals are often more interested in improving their "brand" than in forwarding knowledge.

2. Publication in high-profile journals is often used as a proxy for quality when decisions are made about grants, promotion and tenure.

3. In order to pump the brand by increasing the perception of exclusivity, these journals artificially restrict the number of papers they accept.

4. "Impact Factor" has been used as a marketing tool, and in fact, is deeply flawed as a measure of the actual impact of either the journal or the articles it carries. Pursuing the increase in Impact Factor has become a distorting end in itself, affecting acceptance decisions, and other decisions.

5. The factors that go into calculating the Impact Factor, such as number of citations, are not necessarily real measures of the quality of the article. It may simply be eye-catching, provocative or wrong.

6. Editors of these high profile or luxury journals recognize this and often accept article that are poor science simply because they will be highly cited, pumping up the journal's average Impact Factor.

7. Many scientists also recognize the increase in publishability of such articles and are writing more such articles, creating bubbles in fashionable fields, making bold statements that are attractive to such editors. The prevalence of these articles are driving out the doing of more important science and publishing such as replication studies.

8. In extreme cases, Schekman believes that the high-profile journals contribute to researchers cutting corners, with the result that articles are published which must ultimately be retracted. He points to a recent events where the journal

Science alone has recently retracted high-profile papers reporting cloned human embryos, links between littering and violence, and the genetic profiles of centenarians. Perhaps worse, it has not retracted claims that a microbe is able to use arsenic in its DNA instead of phosphorus, despite overwhelming scientific criticism.

Schekman is editing one of the new open access e-journals, which he hopes will help address these problems. He edits eLife, which he says has no artificial caps on the number of articles it will accept. He has a number of scientist editing articles along with him, so that the editorial choices are being made on the quality of the science in the paper, rather than any other criteria. He notes that the journal is currently supported by Wellcome Trust, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Max Planck Society.

Schekman calls on the decision-making and funding organizations to move away from reliance on the high-profile "luxury" journals as proxies for quality. He admits that the papers that won the Nobel prize were published in such journals. Which gets back to the basic problem in this battle. Unless and until tenure committees truly commit in a reliable way to accepting publication in a journal such as e-Life as the equivalent to publication in Science or Nature or Cell for tenure and promotion decisions, junior faculty will be loathe to follow Schekman in his boycott until they, too, have made their names. The boycott will necessarily be a struggle of senior scientists who have made their names. In a way, that will be good, because these high-profile journals will be damaged by losing such high-profile authors. Yet, the up-coming Nobelists will still be publishing the papers in Cell, Nature and Science that will sooner or later win the their Nobel prizes.

The decoration of the cart before the horse is from a blog post at http://kathieontherun.wordpress.com/2012/02/04/the-high-cost-of-being-well/, a witty post about funding her training for marathons by issuing indulgences for sloth. She does not give any information about where she found the image, which looks old enough to be out of copyright. Also, charming. It reflects my humble opinion that until the academic establishment begins to really support this idea, these boycotts are putting the cart before the horse. But I suppose the establishment won't move its collective fanny without such gestures. We'll see.

Florida International University (not law) arrests 3 for exam thefts

The Miami Herald reports today that university police at Florida International University have arrested 3 individuals in an organized plan to steal and distribute final examinations. They allege that a 30 year old alumnus, hacked into a professor's e-mail. He then entered a university room without permission and took about 5 exams. He then organized a "distribution system" involving two current upper classmen. When the university police arrested one of the students, she was carrying $860 from alleged sales of the exams. This does not seem to have affected the law school directly, but I am sure that computer security will be seriously examined in the near future.

Disneyfication, Power Women and the Problem of Flattening Personality

There was an excellent essay in today's Boston Globe Opinions by Joanna Weiss, "The Problem with Princesses." Weiss is referring to an Internet tornado that has grown out of backlash from Disney giving the standard princess treatment to the very non-princessy character Merida from Pixar's "Brave." There was a Change.org petition challenging the matter of Disney re-designing Merida with a thinner look, bigger eyes, and tamed locks, into a more standard Disney princess look from a group called A Mighty Girl.org.

In response to this, British artist David Trumble created a series of satirical "princess" portraits of 10 real life women of accomplishment. Leading off with "Supreme Princess" Ruth Bader Ginsburg, which is certainly what caught my eye in the first place, the series is really eye catching, cute and thought provoking. The image here is reproduced from an interesting article about the work, at http://www.womenyoushouldknow.net/flatten-heroine-artist-puts-disney-princess-filter-10-real-life-female-role-models/. Absolutely follow the link and enjoy the truly clever portraits he has made of such current and historical figures as Hilary Rodham Clinton, Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman, Marie Curie and Jane Goodall. I have no idea what the current figures think about the images. I hope they are tickled and find the idea clever and worthwhile. The portraits are actually rather good.

The idea being explored is worth revisiting every single gift-giving season. Little girls are confronted by strong messages about beauty and body image conformity very early. They are pushed into sexy images early as well. It's not just Barbie and Bratz with totally unrealistic body dimensions. The Disney princesses, even re-worked for modern theories of empowered women are still worth discussing with little girls. Do you have to have a dainty little nose to be a princess? Do you have to be thin? Do you have to have little feet and elegant hands? How about whether you have to have swishy smooth lush shiny hair that swoops back and forth around you? Do you have to have big eyes with long lashes? What if your mouth isn't small in a cute, pointy chin, with pouty lips? What if, maybe you aren't a classic beauty? Does beauty mean you are good? Does good mean you are beautiful? These two things are sort of mixed up together in the Disney princesses, and in way too much of our little kid toy, AV and illustrated material.

I remember loving pink, and sparkles, and believing that beautiful meant good. I still like to look nice, and have come back to wearing pink after a long hiatus when I wouldn't touch it. But I think it's a very heavy and dangerous little logic trap to lay out for our children and even ourselves to show images of cute and beautiful that equate those images with goodness and flatten all other characteristics. The Disney princesses basically are flat characters who have few other characteristics beyond (recently) "empowerment," beauty and goodness. Even when they are feisty, there is not much more than that to know about them. I suppose, realistically in a shortish animated feature, we don't know much about the other characters, either. But this is why the character of Merida in Brave, who had a long-term struggle with her mother over control issues was so refreshing. She struggled for independence so fiercely, so it made it very ironic when Disney homogenized the character. She particularly did NOT want to be a standard princess crammed into a princess dress, and what did Disney do to her?

Alas.

The image of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Princess Supreme are from the http://www.womenyoushouldknow.net/flatten-heroine-artist-puts-disney-princess-filter-10-real-life-female-role-models/ article about David Trumble, who of course, did the charming art work.

The images of Princess Merida from the Pixar movie Brave and from the Disney redesign are from the Change.org petition website, the two images from by Pixar and Disney, though uncredited at the petition website.

Thanksgiving meditation - a day late

This year, I am a day late with my Thanksgiving blog post. I spent my Thanksgiving with my parents at their rehab center in Louisville, Ky. My youngest brother, his wife and son were also there. It was a very nice Thanksgiving dinner, but a bittersweet one.

My mother suffered a fairly disastrous stroke in mid-October, the week of her 89th birthday. It is not clear, but I am guessing the stroke caused the fall that broke her hip as well. The broken hip is healing well. The stroke is a slower thing to heal. She is able now, after a LOT of work, to say a short sentence, if she does not get too excited, or too tired. She can, with LOTS of support, shuffle about 3 steps. This woman is not going to be back to her old self. But I am impressed with the progress she has made, and with her determination. I am very grateful to all the medical teams who have worked with her and continue to provide gentle, kind and respectful care to her.

My father, whose memory had been deteriorating for some time, is now revealed to be quite incapable of living on his own. So he has joined her in the rehab center. He is actually very fit, physically. He can walk faster than any of the rehab center staff. It's embarrassing how much faster than me he walks. Until my mother's stroke & hip break, my father was doing all the housework and going out to trim the hedges at their house, rake leaves, and shovel snow. Now, however, he spends all his time sitting by my mother. He is taking tender care of her, and they are very sweet together.

My parents have been married for more than 62 years. They lived in the house they just left for 55 years. We kept wanting them to move to assisted living - they both really needed to be in a support system some years ago. But my father resisted with all his stubborn might. He wanted to stay in his house. We made the mistake when we did get them to try out a very nice assisted living place, of leaving the cars and keys with them! They stayed for 2 weeks, but then my father went back home, and my mother loyally went with him. They were back home for maybe half a year before my mother's stroke.

So my parents have been moved from Lexington, where they lived for many decades, to Louisville, where my youngest brother lives. He is the only child still living in the state. So, to be close to somebody who can visit and keep an eye on the care, stay in touch with the doctors and other caregivers, my parents are in Louisville. My siblings and I take turns coming in to give my brother a break.

I am very pleased that my visit is the occasion for my brother and his family to drive to Nashville to do a photo shoot for my amazing nephew, Mark. He is just starting high school, but is already doing couture design, and very interesting work. You can see the progress in his work from year to year at MW. I enjoyed talking with Mark, missed his older sister Grace, who is starting college this year. They are very interesting young people and I am glad they are having a chance to do something fun and very much away from Louisville and taking my brother for a brief vacation from responsibility.

My own family had an early Thanksgiving, thanks to my daughter sweetly coming home a week early to spend time with us while I was available. Thank you, Alexa! I understand she came back again (!) for the real Thanksgiving and I trust they are enjoying the traditional McKenzie Thanksgiving pizza.

I am thankful for family, and for generous caregivers. For people who will help a stranger just to be kind. I am thankful I have a job, and one I enjoy, that I hope is helping others. I am thankful I have children I love who love me back. I am thankful for my husband who is so supportive while I am doing all this. I am thankful for hotels that have internet as part of the package, too, even if it's not a very good connection.

I hope you all are having an excellent Thanksgiving, and safe travels wherever you go! May you also find kind strangers, willing to help.

Bookstore using crowdfunding to stay open

My daughter forwarded me this plea from Food For Thought Books in Amherst, MA.  They are struggling, as so many independent bookstores are these days, to stay open.  They have turned to crowdsourcing to come up with the funds they need to tide themselves over the gap they foresee as they reduce the footprint and try to forge a future as a smaller store.  See Food for Thought CrowdSource.  Food for Thought has been more than a simple bookstore for 38 years.  Located in the Pioneer Valley, it has served as a center for the social justice and progressive communities, and a safe space for the gay, lesbian, queer and transexual community, and for radical thinkers. 

* The Indiegogo website that Food for Thought Books was using to raise money seems to hve gone away. I am trying to find out if (I hope!) that means they met their goal and shut down the fundraiser. I'll let folks know if I can figure out what it means. (11/30/13). Their Facebook page as of 11/27 says: "It's 5pm and we've raised $11,427! Think we can reach $12,000 by tomorrow??" (the ultimate goal is $38,000) So I think the Indigogo page is just temporarily broken. If you are trying to reach it to make a donation, please try back later!
Betsy McK*

While there have been several articles (Economist, Smart Planet, NY Times, and Christian Science Monitor) recently noting numbers showing overall growth in independent bookstores, my personal experience is that most of my local independent booksellers have closed up.  That includes, of course, the chain stores that these articles are dissing. The edge of small, independent booksellers, according to all three of the articles I link above is that they can get to know their customers and form personal bonds with them.  That certainly seems to shine through in the announcement for Food for Thought, above.

The Christian Science Monitor, as usual, analyzes the issues in much more detail, and it's an interesting read.  They point to a variety of influences in the recent resurgence of small, independent bookstores:

1.  The closing of Borders -  many of the erstwhile brick-and-mortar customers of this large chain have wandered into small independent bookstores and found a new bookseller.

2.  "Buy local" isn't just for veggies any more.

3.  Social media has enabled small independents to reach a larger audience with a lower overhead.

4. Newer bookstore owners are coming in with a business-savvy attitude.

5. Younger owners.

6.  Community events, and more creativity in developing community events. Some even run summer camps in their bookstores.

7.  Enough bookstores have closed, the market is stabilizing. Maybe.

8.  Diversified revenue streams; some bookstores do more than just sell new books. Some publish, some sell second-hand as well as new, some sell alternative and niche titles and paraphernalia.

9.  Beyond the coffee shop:  Some are adding wine bars, cheeses, summer sausages, olives, jams and locally made breads, specialty coffees, Italian sodas, cakes and chocolate.

Libraries or Jails?

That was the question put to voters in Lafourche Parish Louisiana last Saturday.  As reported by Carolyn Kellogg of the Los Angeles Times, the ballot measure would have diverted library funding to a new jail.  The measure was put forth by Lindel Toups, Chair of the Lafourche Parish Council, who objects in particular to the Biblioteca Hispana, a Spanish-language section in one of the branch libraries.  Mr. Toups accused the library of "teaching Mexicans how to speak English."  Furthermore, he said, "'Them junkies and hippies and food stamps [recipients] and all, they use the library to look at drugs and food stamps [on the Internet].  I see them do it.'" 

The specific proposal called for moving some property-tax revenue from the library in order to build a new detention facility.  Advocates of the proposal cited the need for a new jail, and said that diverting the money away from the library would allow the $25 million jail to be built without raising taxes.  Opponents pointed out that  the library system has already endured massive spending cuts and that some of the nine branches are in need of repair and renovation.  In addition, the library is not meeting state standards for staffing and acquisitions, and needs to devote more resources to both.  Finally, the library needs more funding to support the purchase of technology and to provide the digital resources that residents request.    

According to the statistics that Kellogg cites, Lafourche Parish is not a wealthy area.  The library is needed by those its serves and it is used.  "About 43% of [the Parish's] households do not have Internet access at home, while the library provides free Internet access with 186 computers.  More than half of  ...  residents, 53%, hold library cards, and in 2013, the library system has served more than 280,000 visitors."  The library launched a vigorous P.R. campaign, which was ultimately successful.  On Saturday, the voters rejected the measure by an eight-point margin (54-46 per cent), with 15.1 per cent of registered voters turning out. 

Google Books: Scanning is Fair Use per Judge Denny Chin

Judge Denny Chin granted Google's motion for summary judgement today, dismissing the lawsuit by the Authors' Guild against their Google Books project.  Here is the ruling on Scribd.  Judge Chin found that Google's scanning and adding a search function to the print books was "highly transformative" lifting the Google Book Project out of the strictures of copyright into Fair Use.

Judge Chin referred to a number of amicus briefs filed by various library and scholarly groups to recognize the many benefits generated by the book and library projects in his opinion.  From preservation to data mining to increasing access, the Google projects are recognized as providing huge new benefits that were previously not reached by either print or e-book presence.

Judge Chin assumes that the plaintiff has established a prima facie case that Google has violated copyright through the scanning projects.  But because he finds that it falls under Fair Use doctrine


(§107 of  the Copyright Act), the case is dismissed. Because Google Books uses the words in the books for a different purpose - creating snippets for readers to sample, for instance, or to search with , or for datamining, Judge Chin finds Googles use "highly transformative."

Words in books are being used in a way they have not been used before. Google Books as created something new in the use of book text -- the frequency of words and trends in their usage provide substantive information.

     Google Books does not supersede or supplant booksbecause it is not a tool to be used to read books. Instead, it"adds value to the original" and allows for "the creation of new information, new aesthetics, new insights and understandings." Leval, Toward a Fair Use Standard, 103 Harv. L. Rev. at 1111. Hence, the use is transformative.

(from Chin,  Author's Guild, et al., v. Google, 05 Civ. 8136 (S.D. N.Y, Nov. 14, 2013) , at pp. 20 - 21). 
 Image is Judge Denny Chin, taken at the time of his confirmation as a federal judge.

Veterans' Courts

A story in the Boston Globe about Creating a Special Court for Veterans caught my attention this Veterans' Day.  Suffolk County, (Boston's County), is following the lead of Norfolk County, where I live.  The Veterans' Court in Norfolk County is described as a cross between a court and an AA meeting, where all the veterans come and participate in the hearings for each other, offering comments and encouragement. 

“It’s fascinating to watch,” [Bill] Sinnott [a former Marine and corporate counsel for the city of Boston] said, especially when the veterans report the progress they have made. The fellow veterans in the courtroom will often share words of encouragement, he said. “They’ll say, ‘Great job, John. Atta boy, John.’ ”

The idea began in Buffalo, NY in 2008, and has since spread to 104 Veterans' Courts around the Country. There is a great website and organization, Justice for Vets.org which provides support and assistance to cities and counties wishing to explore setting up such courts. At What is a Veterans Treatment Court, the website explains the rationale for establishing a veterans-only docket:

Veterans Treatment Courts allow jurisdictions to serve a large segment of the justice-involved veteran population as opposed to business as usual – having all veterans appear before random judges who may or may not have an understanding of their unique problems.  Because a Veterans Treatment Court judge handles numerous veterans' cases and is supported by a strong, interdisciplinary team, he or she is in a much better position to exercise discretion and effectively respond than a judge who only occasionally hears a case involving a veteran defendant.  A Veterans Treatment Court judge better understands the issues that a veteran may be struggling with, such as substance addiction, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Traumatic Brain Injury, and military sexual trauma.  A Veterans Treatment Court judge is also more familiar with the Veterans Health Administration, Veterans Benefit Administration, State Department of Veterans Affairs, Veterans Service Organizations, and volunteer Veteran Mentors and how they all can assist veteran defendants.

There is much more there, including links to an annual conference (Dec. 2-5, 2013 in Washington, DC), resources, including information about state legislation, and information on the beneficial impact of such courts.  

Vendor-Librarian Negotiations

Dear Colleagues, 

       A little while ago, I forwarded to members of the AALL Consumer Advocacy Caucus an e-mail I had received. A researcher was requesting librarians to participate in a survey on vendor-librarian interactions, in preparation for his presentation at the Charleston Conference. I have sent tech services staff to that conference and they have always found it excellent, so I participated gladly, and encouraged any members of the caucus willing, to participate as well.  I received an e-mail back today, with instructions on how to receive the results, and info on when the presentation will be at the Charleston Conference.  I hope others will be equally interested in this:

Thanks to all of you who responded to my Vendor Negotiation Survey last month! We had a tremendous response rate – well over 200 respondents. Responses are wide-ranging and thoughtful, and offer great insight into the library’s perspective on the negotiation process and dealing with vendors. Anybody that is interested in receiving the results, please type “SEND ME THE RESEARCH DATA” in the subject of an email and send to info@data-planet.com . We will be sending the results out on or about November 14th.

For those of you attending the 2013 Charleston Conference, I’ll be presenting Secrets in Vendor Negotiations with Carl Grant (Associate Dean, Knowledge Services & Chief Technology Officer, University of Oklahoma Libraries & former Chief Librarian & President of ExLibris and President of VTLS) and Mike Gruenberg (Gruenberg Consulting, LLC), on Friday, November 8, 2:15 pm – 3 pm. We’d love to see you there! For more information and to register, visit here. We will provide actionable takeaways you will be able to use immediately in negotiations with your technology, content, and service providers. I firmly believe that more clarity in the process of negotiations provides a more level playing field, opens up budget dollars for new and innovative products, promotes greater competition among vendors, and raises overall product quality.

Of course, I will be attending sessions and would love to talk to anyone interested in all the innovative things we are doing with statistical content at Data-Planet. We have published 19 guides on statistical content since June, and will soon release overview statistical guides for US states and subject categories – our guides have direct links to infographics, DataSheets and data, providing much more detail available than any other statistical compilation. For a sample, take a look at our Climate Change subject guide. And even more exciting, we are getting ready to preview our next generation Data-Planet Statistical Datasets UI – a JAVA-free version with more powerful charting, new mapping, and much simpler and cleaner usability. We will start to preview the new Statistical Datasets interface to current customers in December. If you haven't seen it yet, we have added Snapshot Statistics to our Ready Reference interface. All Snapshots include related data links, DOIs, infographics and links to the full DataSheet.

The e-mails have been from Matt Dunie, who turns out the be the president of Data Planet.  Should be interesting, since data gathering is what they do.