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Library News for the Faculty |
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Fall 1998
In This Issue:
To Publish and Perish: Setting an Agenda to Reclaim Scholarly PublishingResearch universities have it within their power to work with one another and with scholarly societies to transform scholarly communication into "a system of electronically mediated publications that will provide enhanced access to scholarly information and relief from the escalating prices of commercial publishers." So concluded the participants -- university presidents, provosts, faculty, librarians, counsels, and representatives of scholarly societies and university presses -- in a special Roundtable on Managing Intellectual Property in Higher Education. The findings of this group are reported in the essay "To Publish and Perish" featured in the March 1998 issue of Policy Perspectives, the publication of the Pew Higher Education Roundtable. This issue is available on the World Wide Web at <http://www.irhe.upenn.edu/cgi-bin/pp-cat.pl#V7N4>, and print copies can be obtained from the Institute for Research on Higher Education, University of Pennsylvania, 4200 Pine Street, 5A, Philadelphia, PA 19104-4090 (phone 800/437-9799). Noting that the rising cost of scholarly publications is not a 'library problem' but a symptom of the deeper conflict between the sociology and economics of academic publishing, the essay contrasts the expectation of an open exchange of information within the academy to the pricing and copyright practices of commercial publishers that control many of the major science and technology scholarly publishing venues. In an effort to regain some control over the research and scholarship generated by the academic community, the roundtable participants proposed a set of five strategies to address the problem. They recommended that:
The roundtable was convened to confront the challenges facing the academic community in maintaining access to significant research and scholarship at a time when both the volume and price of information have increased nearly three-fold in the last decade alone. The event was sponsored by the Association of American Universities, the Association of Research Libraries, and the Pew Higher Education Roundtable. UC Follow Up on Pew Report
UC Editors ForumThis fall the UCLA Library will invite faculty members who are editors of scholarly journals to participate in a roundtable discussion about supply-and-demand issues associated with scholarly publishing. This will be part of a UC-wide initiative called the UC Editors Forum created to solicit perspectives and opinions from faculty members who play an influential role in the dissemination of scholarship. The California Digital Library has funded a UCLA Library project to identify journal editors among the UC faculty and to organize focus group sessions that will be replicated on other campuses. The Library has for some time been confronting the conundrum of skyrocketing journal prices and stagnating collections budgets. Cancelling subscriptions has been a stopgap measure; solutions to the problem lie in exploring alternative publishing options, issues of copyright retention, and influencing the market for scholarly communication. The Library looks forward to hearing the perspectives of key faculty members on these and related issues in the months to come. East Asian Library Celebrates Its 50th AnniversaryIn 1947 Richard C. Rudolph, chairman of the Department of Oriental Languages (now the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures) at UCLA, traveled to China on a Fulbright grant to study archaeology and on a personal mission to purchase books to support the Chinese program at UCLA. In the wake of the Communist takeover, Professor Rudolph hurriedly combed through bookstores in Beijing and Chengdu for reference works, encyclopedias, and large collected works known as "collectanea," all of them original, woodblock-printed books. On the journey home he bought more books in Japan. Altogether, Professor Rudolph purchased more than 10,000 volumes on this trip. In 1948 the Oriental Library was installed in the basement of the Powell Library building, providing both a basic reference collection and a cultural retreat for faculty and students on campus. In 1971, after the second phase of the University Research Library was constructed, the library moved to its current location on the second floor of the Research Library building, and in April 1981 it was formally named in honor of Richard Rudolph's distinguished efforts in building the collection. Then in 1990 the name was changed to the East Asian Library to more accurately reflect its collection of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean materials and the name of the program the library supports, East Asian Studies. Over the years the collection has grown dramatically in size and stature. As of June 1998 the total holdings consisted of approximately 413,500 volumes (including 224,800 in Chinese, 146,800 in Japanese, 28,500 in Korean, and more than 13,400 microform items), and the library currently receives about 2,550 serial titles annually. Housing the largest East Asian collection in Southern California and the twelfth largest in North America, the library is not only heavily used by UC faculty and students; it is also widely utilized by the local community as well as scholars worldwide. The East Asian collection is strong in Chinese archaeology, Japanese Buddhism, folklore, pre-modern history and classical literature of both China and Japan, and Chinese and Japanese fine arts. Special efforts have been made in recent years to strengthen Chinese and Japanese local historical materials and Chinese statistical yearbooks. The library's Korean collection has developed since 1985 and has particular strengths in the areas of history, literature, and religion. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Richard C. Rudolph East Asian Library, and a number of events will celebrate this momentous occasion, including a reception on October 30 for current and prospective donors and an exhibit in the lobby of the Young Research Library Building. On view from October 1 to November 30, 1998, the exhibit includes unique and rare materials held by the UCLA Library and works by UCLA faculty in East Asian Studies. For further information on the exhibit, please visit the Library Exhibits Web page at <http://www.library.ucla.edu/libraries/url/urlexhibits/>. Library Adds Lexis-NexisTaking advantage of favorable pricing available to a mega-consortium of university libraries from around the country, the UCLA Library has subscribed to one of the single largest databases for current worldwide news and information, Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe. The license to Lexis-Nexis allows campus-wide access to users with domain names of ucla.edu or dialing in on a Bruin OnLine account. This database contains full text and abstracts of news, business, and legal information and provides full-text access to nearly 6,000 individual titles. Users can search foreign and domestic newspapers and wire services; radio and television transcripts; and business, medical, industry, and legislative magazines, journals, and newsletters. Lexis-Nexis supports a broad range of interdisciplinary research. There is wide geographic coverage and a growing list of foreign-language sources, as well as news services like Reuters, Associated Press, Agence France Press, and Xinhua (New China) News Agency. The database is updated daily for most newspapers and even hourly for some wire services and media transcripts. Training on Lexis-Nexis will be incorporated into future course-specific and general library bibliographic instruction. Searching is straightforward and similar to other Web products, and the Lexis-Nexis Web site includes a helpful "Quick Guide," which explains basic and more advanced searching techniques. To access Lexis-Nexis, click on the link under "Digital Resources" on the UCLA Library home page at <http://www2.library.ucla.edu>, or open to it directly at <http://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe>. A useful listing of the many sources covered in the database, broken down by language/geographic area in some cases, is available at the publisher's Web site at <http://www.cispubs.com>; click on the Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe icon. If you have further questions about Lexis-Nexis, please contact Roberta Medford, social sciences bibliographer (<rmedford@library.ucla.edu>; ext. 51249) or staff at the reference desk in any library unit. A Site to Bookmark: Electronic Resources in the SciencesA new Web site on Electronic Resources in the Sciences at <http://www.library.ucla.edu/etext/sciences/> made its debut in mid-March of this year. This site covers electronic resources, including electronic journals, access to which is licensed with funds from the California Digital Library's Science, Technology & Industry Collection or campus library funds, and a few provided at no additional charge by publishers. The journals are listed alphabetically, by subject categories, or by publisher (see illustration). Most journals are viewable in PDF format, using Adobe Acrobat; some are available in HTML. Access is limited in most cases to users with domain names of ucla.edu, dialing in on Bruin OnLine accounts, or by password. Links to some of the journal articles are also provided by databases, e.g., INSPEC, BIOSIS, or Current Contents, available through the MELVYL® System on the Web. With the steadily increasing number of science and engineering journals available electronically, UCLA science librarians decided that a one-stop shopping approach for access to these journals would be a real help to UCLA faculty and students. The Web developers at the Biomedical and Science & Engineering libraries collaborated to create the E-Resources Web site, which can also be accessed from the "Digital Resources" site on the UCLA Library home page as well as from the Biomedical Library and Science & Engineering Library Web pages. Suggestions for additional full-text electronic resources are welcomed by the collection development librarians. New Rare Books Librarian AppointedDaniel J. Slive has been appointed Rare Books Librarian in the UCLA Library's Department of Special Collections. The Library's collection of rare books encompasses more than 300,000 volumes, with notable components including the Ahmanson-Murphy Aldine Collection, the Ahmanson-Murphy Collection of Early Italian Printing, the Michael Sadlier Collection of 19th Century Fiction, and the Children's Book Collection. Slive comes to UCLA from the John Carter Brown Library, an independent research institution and rare book library at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, where he was Coordinator of Reader and Bibliographic Services. During his tenure he curated four major exhibitions on various aspects of printing and the colonial era, and his writings include exhibition catalogues, book reviews, and scholarly articles. Among other professional involvements, Slive is a consultant for the "Guide to Documentary Sources for Andean Art History and Archaeology," based at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art. He has served on several committees of the Rare Books and Manuscripts Section of the Association of College and Research Libraries, a division of the American Library Association, and is currently a member of that section's security committee. Slive earned an M.S. in library and information science and an A.B. in English literature from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and an M.A. in Ibero-American studies from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. He has also attended numerous courses at the Rare Book School at the University of Virginia and the Graphic Arts Summer Workshop at Dartmouth College. Theil Named 1998 Librarian of the YearGordon Theil, head of the Music Library, was named the 1998 Librarian of the Year by the Librarians Association of the University of California, Los Angeles (LAUC-LA). The award cited Theil's ongoing contributions and leadership within the UCLA Library and community and his qualities of intellectual creativity, leadership, and moral courage. As head of the Music Library, Theil is responsible for collections in a variety of media, including approximately 64,000 books, 80,000 volumes of scores, 90,000 disc and tape recordings, and a growing collection of multimedia materials. He has played a central role in the creation of the Music Library's media lab, which contains computer and audio equipment that students and faculty in the School of the Arts and Architecture and the Department of Musicology can use to listen to sound recordings, LPs, cassettes and compact discs, and multimedia CD-ROMs in the library's collection. With his technical skills and enthusiasm for technology, Theil has also been instrumental in the creation and development of the UCLA Library Web site, which with the debut of ORION2 will become an even more essential part of the Library's "public face." Until recently he served as Webmaster for the site and still participates on the committee that manages the site. LAUC is the University of California's primary organization for professional librarian and governance affairs. Serving on the 1998 Librarian of the Year committee were Norma Corral, YRL Reference (chair); Leon Ferder, Bibliographers Group; Tina-Karen Forman, YRL Cataloging Department; Lise Snyder, College Library; and Professor Leah Lievrouw, UCLA GSE&IS Department of Library and Information Studies. New Law Library OpensThe start of a new semester at the Law School in August 1998 also marked the opening of the Hugh and Hazel Darling Law Library. Designed by Moore Ruble Yudell, the firm responsible for the renovation of the Powell Library, the facility offers law students a combination of state-of-the-art technology and traditional library design. The expanded library houses a collection of more than 500,000 volumes and provides study areas complete with tables and chairs, sofas, and lounge chairs. In addition, law students have access to a number of digital resources including Lexis-Nexis, Westlaw, online reserves, and various CD-ROM research tools from either on- or off-campus through the law school computer network. This new facility was made possible in part by a generous donation from the Hugh and Hazel Darling Foundation. Mrs. Darling created a trust in memory of her husband, a practicing lawyer, community leader, and guest lecturer at the UCLA Law School. Upon Mrs. Darling's death the trust became the Hugh and Hazel Darling Foundation. New Name for Research LibraryUCLA faculty, staff, and students may have noticed a new name on the Research Library and a new look for its entrance area. The library has been renamed the Charles E. Young Research Library in honor of the former chancellor as the result of an extremely generous gift from an anonymous donor to Campaign UCLA, and the exterior entrance has been renovated. More details and photographs will appear in the Spring/Summer 1999 issue of the UCLA Librarian. ORION2 Is Coming Soon: New Library Information System UpdateWork on implementation of ORION2, the UCLA Library's new World Wide Web-based information system, is continuing throughout the fall. This new system will be more accessible than ORION, the Library's current online system, meaning that anyone with access to the Internet and a Web browser like Netscape or Internet Explorer will be able to search the Library catalog and several other databases. By utilizing modern communications and data management technologies, ORION2 will also more effectively and efficiently meet the needs of its users and will be able to adapt as those needs change in the future. ORION2 had previously been scheduled to come online in August 1998, but the Library has chosen to extend the implementation process for a number of reasons. UCLA is among the first universities to purchase this complex system, and the cutting-edge strategies that it employs to organize and deliver information require additional testing and refinement. Library staff want to ensure that the system, which must accommodate millions of bibliographic and patron records, will deliver acceptable response times, and even after the system goes online, it will continue to develop, with additional features to be implemented during the coming year. Further information on the system is available on the Library Web page at <http://www.library.ucla.edu/catalog/orion2>. Updates on the launch date and on the implementation of additional features will be posted on the Web page and will also be available through on-campus publicity and in future issues of Library News for the Faculty. Scholarship in a New Media Environment: Issues and TrendsFor the past three years, a series of panel discussions have provided faculty, teaching assistants, librarians, and educational technology staff with an opportunity to share experiences and grapple with the issues surrounding the integration of information technologies in higher education. The new 1998/99 series begins in the fall quarter with two panel discussions:
You are invited to join these highly interactive fora as a panelist or attendee. Come with a colleague and contribute to this ongoing dialogue on how UCLA is shaping the use of technology in scholarship. Refreshments will be served. For information regarding past fora, visit the Web site at <http://www.oid. ucla.edu/sianme>. To suggest future topics or panelists, please contact Steve Rossen, Faculty New Media Center, at <fnmc@ucla.edu> or ext. 64599. |
