August 2011 Archives

The Dartmouth College Library seeks an innovator to design, build, and supervise digital production in support of the Library’s mission to further teaching and research. As the Library embarks on an expanded program to digitize material from its collections and to support digital publishing, this job will offer a creative manager the opportunity to develop efficient production workflows for a variety of media. Reporting to the Head of Preservation Services, the position will work collaboratively and closely with library staff across the system, including Preservation, Cataloging, Special Collections, and the Digital Library Technologies Group.

QUALIFICATIONS: A Masters degree in library science, information technology, or advanced certification in digitization or project management required. Significant experience may substitute for advanced certification. An ability to prioritize work and meet multiple deadlines is essential, as is excellent organizational and communication skills, and the ability to work collegially in a team environment. Supervisory experience is preferred.

RANK AND SALARY: The position is part of the Library Classification System of Professional Ranks. Salary is commensurate with experience and qualifications. Full benefits package including 22 vacation days; comprehensive health care; retirement plans, including TIAA-CREF; and relocation assistance.

GENERAL INFORMATION: Dartmouth College is a highly selective undergraduate college with distinguished graduate schools of business, engineering, medicine and 20 graduate programs primarily in the sciences. Dartmouth has remained at the forefront of American higher education since 1769. At the heart of Dartmouth College is one of the oldest research libraries in the United States. Nine libraries, distributed across various academic centers, house the 3 million volume collection and provide access to a rich array of digital resources supported by a technically robust network environment. The Library fosters intellectual growth and advances the teaching and research missions of the College by supporting excellence and innovation in education and research, managing and delivering scholarly content, and partnering in the development and dissemination of new scholarship.

APPLICATION: Review of applications will begin 15 September 2011, and will continue until the position is filled. To see the complete job description and to apply online please go to http://jobs.dartmouth.edu.

Dartmouth College is an equal opportunity, affirmative action employer. Women and minorities are encouraged to apply. Applicants must demonstrate a commitment to diversity and to serving the needs of a diverse population.

In a recent Educause article Michael A. Keller, University Librarian at Stanford, discusses Linked Data in a library context and advocates for libraries to develop a Linked Data prototype:

“Semantic Web approaches in general and Linked Data methods specifically offer new opportunities for addressing the traditional and prevailing problems of too many silos of content, too many disparate modes of search and access, and too little precision and too much ambiguity in search results in the extreme environments of academic information resources intended to support and report on the research and teaching in large research enterprises. These opportunities build on the simple and powerful protocols driving the Internet and the web. Linked Data prototypes might also demonstrate new modes of discovery, navigation of complex information topographies, graphical user interfaces for exploration, and ways to customize discovery and access for users. We need to develop a large Linked Data prototype based primarily on metadata that we own or can reach and that will be transcoded to RDF triples and provided with URIs to associated documents, whether digital or physical, to test the efficacy and efficiency of these approaches.”

View the original article here.

The DLF/DCC Beta Sprint project was featured on the home page of the Graduate School of Library & Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

The press release underscored the collaborative efforts of the current Beta Sprint project as well as its foundation on the collaborative IMLS Digital Collections and Content project:

“Professor Carole Palmer, director of the Center for Informatics Research in Science and Scholarship (CIRSS), has been awarded a planning grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to participate in the Beta Sprint project launched by the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA).

Palmer is working with her co-PI Rachel Frick at the Digital Library Federation, a program of the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). They are developing a functional prototype that will redesign the IMLS Digital Collections and Content (IMLS DCC) resource as a core base of content for the DPLA. The IMLS DCC, originally launched in 2003, is an aggregation of digital collections from libraries, museums, and archives, supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services and developed through a collaboration between CIRSS and the University Library.”

Other members of the DLF/DCC Beta Sprint team working with Palmer and Frick are coordinator Jacob Jett, research assistant Richard Urban, coordinator Katrina Fenlon, and research assistant Peter Organisciak (pictured below from left to right).

As part of LODLAM-DC, Jon Voss will deliver a free talk called “An Introduction to Linked Open Data in Libraries, Archives, & Museums” on Friday, September 16.

Based on an earlier talk given at NYPL Labs, Voss’s presentation will “explore the fundamental elements of Linked Open Data and discover how rapidly growing access to metadata within the world’s libraries, archives and museums is opening exciting new possibilities for understanding our past, and may help in predicting our future.”

This event is free and open to the public, so register soon. For a sneak peek, check out this slideshow from Voss’s earlier talk.

Paid Internship Opportunity: Research Assistant for the Digital Public Library of America planning initiative

Are you a student interested in helping to launch a large-scale digital public library in the United States? Excited about the future of online access to information? Want to collaborate closely with innovative partners in public and research libraries, government, publishing, and elsewhere?

The Berkman Center seeks two part-time Research Assistants for the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) planning initiative. The DPLA planning initiative is bringing together representatives from public and research libraries, the educational community, cultural organizations, state and local government, publishers, authors, and private industry in a series of meetings and workshops to examine strategies for improving public access to comprehensive online resources. More information about the initiative can be found at http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/research/dpla. These positions are ideal for students who are looking to learn more about, and contribute to, these efforts.

Position Responsibilities:

Primary responsibilities will be to support the DPLA Secretariat, which includes staying abreast of developments in the digital library field (including news related to e-publishing, copyright, linked open data, and other areas), blogging regularly on these issues, writing weekly round-ups of the DPLA public listserv, and contributing to the DPLA wiki and forthcoming website. The RAs will also assist with preparations for the DPLA plenary meeting in October and occasional workshops, including opportunities to create related multimedia. This position represents an ideal opportunity for those interested in digital humanities, intellectual property issues, and access to knowledge and information.

Required Education, Experience and Skills:

• Advanced writing and editing skills, with the ability to quickly draft and contextualize written materials within the suite of the project outputs;

• Excellent critical reading comprehension, with the ability to absorb material quickly;

• Attention to detail;

• Strong knowledge of basic HTML;

• Familiarity with common social media tools such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube;

• Prior wiki editing experience or a willingness to learn.

Additional Skills/Interests Helpful for This Position:

• Expertise in fields such as digital humanities, library and information science, law, or journalism;

• Media production, including experience recording and/or editing audio and/or video;

• Prior blogging experience;

• Familiarity with WordPress.

The Research Assistant Will Have the Opportunity to:

• Boost his or her research credentials;

• Creatively bridge research and practice;

• Become a key member of the Digital Public Library of America team;

• Participate in the greater Berkman Center community and engage in ongoing dynamic conversations at the forefront of thought on technology and society.

Time Commitment & Payment:

RAs work approximately 8-12 hours per week. Compensation is the standard Harvard RA/intern rate of $11.50/hour. No other benefits are provided.

This position is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and remote participation is not possible for this opportunity.

We’re looking to have RAs join us in fall 2011.

To apply:

Please send your current CV or resume and a cover letter summarizing your interest and experience to Rebekah Heacock at rheacock@cyber.law.harvard.edu with “Application for DPLA RA” in the subject line.

The University of Edinburgh is seeking to hire a new Head of the Digital Library. We need an experienced and dynamic leader to take the University’s Digital Library to the next level of delivery, working in an environment which includes access to some of the world’s top research in digital libraries and working closely with other teams in Information Services, including the Digital Curation Centre and Edina.

Your experience will enable you to lead your team in an innovative and customer-focussed manner. You will have substantial experience of strategic developments in digital libraries and repository management. You will be excited by the opportunities we face in managing research data.

For further information, please contact Sheila Cannell (Sheila.cannell@ed.ac.uk), Director of Library Services.

Further details are available at:

http://www.jobs.ed.ac.uk/vacancies/index.cfm?fuseaction=vacancies.detail&vacancy_ref=3014396

On August 11, 2011, DPLA chair John Palfrey announced the newest member of the Digital Public Library of America Steering Committee:

“I am writing with the good news that Dwight McInvaill, Director of the Georgetown County Library (South Carolina), will be joining the Digital Public Library of America Steering Committee.

The Steering Committee is working to bring together representatives from the educational community, public and research libraries, cultural organizations, state and local government, publishers, authors, and private industry in a series of meetings and workshops to discuss legal, policy, and technical issues surrounding public access to comprehensive online resources. We hope to emerge with a concrete workplan and a governance structure that captures the consensus of representatives of the country’s libraries, universities, archives, and museums for moving forward together with a shared vision for a Digital Public Library of America.

We are thrilled to welcome Dwight to the Steering Committee.”

Mr. McInvaill will bring to the steering committee 30 years of public library service, as well as experience chairing the American Library Association’s Taskforce on Rural School, Tribal, and Public Libraries and the Rural Libraries Committee of the Public Library Association. He is currently a board member of the Association of Rural and Small Libraries. In 2009, Mr. McInvaill was presented with an I Love My Librarian Award from the Carnegie Foundation and the New York Times.

This just in: the New York Times recently launched Longitude, an interactive map of the day’s news leveraging Linked Open Data, as a featured project of its larger beta620 website.

As described by Evan Sandhaus, its developer, Longitude links NYT subject headings to geographic and corporate or biographical data from Geonames and Freebase:

“When you open Longitude you’ll see a number of “Times T” pins plotted out in a Google Map. The locations for these pins were all derived from Geonames. Click on any pin and you’ll be presented with a pop-up balloon containing a list of the ten most recent, relevant Times articles. But wait, there’s more! For some locations such as Missouri, your balloon will have one or two additional tabs: “Natives” and/or “Companies.” Click on one of these tabs and you’ll be presented with list of locally-born people and locally-headquartered organizations. You can even view Times articles for these people and organizations.”

Read Sandhaus’s pitch for Longitude, in which he also promises future posts about technical details of the app.