CCC Report "Copyright in the Digital Workspace"

The Copyright Clearance Center (CCC) has released a 12-page report entitled "Copyright In The Digital Workspace: Content Use and Attitudes Toward Copyright in Corporate America." The report, based on a study of 30,000 corporate employees shows widespread reuse of content across organizations. Text and a graph on page 4 detail the use of this shared information. The report goes to describe employees' awareness of copyright and their practices, and ends with a survey and suggestions for understanding an organization's risk. The report is available here.

Digitization and Stephen Covey

Is your team good at its digitization tasks? We tend to think that anyone can learn how to create, manage and preserve digital assets, but that is not always true. It is both a science and an art. It requires creativity and attention to mundane/repetitive details. It sometimes requires being excited by tasks that, after a while, may seem quite boring.

Stephen R. Covey, who is best known for the book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People has an interview question that may help you discern if the people you are interviewing for a spot on your digitization team are indeed the right people. The question is -- From your earliest memory, what did you like doing that you did well? By having the person talk about this from work done in grade school through the present time, you'll figure out what type out worker this person will be on your team. Is the person better at dealing with technology or people? Better at dealing with details? Does the person enjoy repetitive tasks? Does the person's history show him/her as working well with others or alone? Of course, this should not be the only question you ask, but this question may give you the insight that you need and ensure that your team is good at its work.

Looking for a degree program for competitive intelligence?

The Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP) maintains a list of colleges and universities that offer courses and programs in competitive intelligence.

URL updated March 27, 2011

Brewster Kahle speech at the Library of Congress

On Dec. 13, Brewster Kahle spoke at the Library of Congress as part of their series on the Digital Future. I have listened to his speech twice and will undoubtedly listen to it even more because it shows us the future of digitization and proves that the future is occurring today. (For a link to his speech, go to this page.)

We already know that in many regions, digitization is something dreamed of due to the lack of money and knowledgeable resources. Some of us are fortunate to be in localities that have digitization vendors and training courses. For many who are involved in digitization, it is a time-consuming and costly venture. However, Brewster Kahle's speech (and accompanying photos) show us a world where digitization is inexpensive and truly changing what people access and how they access it. In his speech, he talks about digitizing books and then printing them on demand quite inexpensively. This could change the paradigm used by libraries of being lenders and make them low-cost booksellers instead.

Most amazing was the fact that he talked about digitizing a book for $10.00 by using a robotic scanner. Of course, automation always lowers the cost of something, but many of our projects cannot be automated, so we often see costs of $10.00 per page.

Now that he has shown us the future, we need to make this future a reality not only in some places, but everywhere. What he shows is too important for any of us to miss.

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Technorati tags: Digitization, Brewster Kahle, Book

Presentations on competitive intelligence

I have done two-half day workshops and one presentation on competitive intelligence (CI) this year. The workshops were for the Manaufacturers Association of Central NY. The first laid the groundwork for how to do CI and had some exercises in it to get people started thinking about what information they needed to collect. The second contained hands-on exercises, which you can do from your computer. I've placed those PowerPoints for those workshops, a short presentation done for AFSM International, and some additional information at http://www.HurstAssociates.com/CI.htm. Feel free to look at those PowerPoints as a way of beginning to learn about competitive intelligence.

Digitization agreement between the Library of Congress and others

According to the New York Times, "Last night the Library of Congress and a group of international libraries from the United States, Canada, Egypt, China and the Netherlands announced a plan to create a publicly available digital archive of one million books on the Internet. The group said it planned to have 70,000 volumes online by next April."

Google Will Digitize and Search Millions of Books From 5 Leading Research Libraries

That's the headline in the Chronicle of Education's Today's News. The BBC news noted that:

The libraries of five of the world's most important academic institutions are to be digitised by Google.

Scanned pages from books in the public domain will then be made available for search and reading online.

The full libraries of Michigan and Stanford universities, as well as archives at Harvard, Oxford and the New York Public Library are included.

Online pages from scanned books will not have adverts but will have links to online store Amazon, Google said.

A key point of this effort is that:

Books that are in the public domain will probably have their full text available through the search engine. For works that are protected by copyright -- the majority -- Google will show either bibliographic information or snippets of text that appear around a Google user's search term. (San Jose Mercury News)

The New York Times noted that:

Although Google executives declined to comment on its technology or the cost of the undertaking, others involved estimate the figure at $10 for each of the more than 15 million books and other documents covered in the agreements. Librarians involved predict the project could take at least a decade.

This will be an amazing effort! Everyone should keep his or her eye on this undertaking, and see what new understandings of digital libraries and digitization it yields.

How long do you expect digital files to last?

In going back through my notes of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference (MARAC), I see that one speaker talked about defining up front the lifespan of your digital materials you are creating. This is a point that we don't always consider. We may not creating digital assets that need to last forever. Perhaps the assets only need to last seven years for legal reasons, or some other defined length of time. So when thinking about a digitization project, think about the length of time you want the digital assets to last, then put the processes in place to ensure that they last that long AND (if necessary) destroy them at the appropriate time.

Digitization Training Opportunities

This following message is circulating on the Internet and worth noting.
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"Basics and Beyond" Digitization Training Opportunities!

The Illinois Digitization Institute at the University of Illinois Library
at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), through a National Leadership Grant from the
Institute of Museum and Library Services, is offering more digitization
training courses in 2005.

On-line Only Course: January 31 - February 18, 2005. This
three-week on-line course allows busy professionals the opportunity to
learn more about digitization from the convenience of their own
computers! Asynchronous, Web-based course allows participants to
use the on-line course time to engage in on-line discussions, solve real
world digitization problems, and do readings on various aspects of the
digitization process. Cost: $200.00 per person.

On-line Plus Hands-on: February 7 - 25 with workshop on March 1
and 2, 2005. 3-week web-based course followed by a 2-day, intensive
hands-on workshop which will take place at the UIUC campus. Once
the on-line portion is complete, participants will travel to the UIUC
campus for two days to work hands-on with scanners, digital cameras, and
other image capture devices, create metadata, and work with digital
imaging and image management software. The workshop will also
include guest experts in the areas of digitization and
preservation. Cost: $300.00 per person plus travel,
accommodations, and per diem for the 2-day workshop.

Both courses will be directed towards participants from libraries,
museums, archives, and other institutions who are seeking in-depth
digitization instruction to work with cultural heritage materials.
Discussions and assignments will focus on the following topics:

• Benefits and costs of digitization projects
• Issues involved with designing and evaluating digitization projects,
  and goal-setting
• Selection of materials for digitization
• Determining the best way to digitize a collection and make it
  accessible to the target audience
• Planning issues including: budgeting, workflow, copyright, storage,
  and preservation
• Metadata: best practices and creation
• Evaluating, selecting, and purchasing digitization equipment
• Basic scanning and image manipulation
• Delivery and access of digital images

Illinois cultural heritage associations may be able to qualify for a
scholarship to cover the cost of either of these courses.

To learn more about the "Basics and Beyond" digitization course series
and available scholarships or to register for courses, please visit
http://images.library.uiuc.edu/projects/IDI or contact:

Amy Maroso, Project Coordinator
Grainger Engineering Library Information Center
Phone: (217) 244-4946
E-mail: maroso@uiuc.edu

People like people who are responsive

Mark Zweig of ZweigWhite has written an article on being "hyper-responsive" to user requests. He believes that responding to a user in a few hours or within 24 hours is not enough; rather he believes that responding in 10 minutes is much better for the user and the organization. He notes that there are tools that will help people to be this responsive, but that we don't use them.

How responsive is your digital library or digitization project to user requests? How quickly can a person get a response? Historically, we have said that we would respond within 24 hours, but many people are working under deadlines (even students who are doing research), so is that really being responsive to someone's needs? Can we build a support network that will provide hyper-responsiveness to people -- no matter what time zone they live in -- when they use our online collections? If we are not hyper-responsive, will people see the collection as not being useful?

Obviously an idea worth discussing.

Reproduction charging models & rights policy for digital images in American art museum

The Mellon Foundation funded a study entitled, "Reproduction charging models & rights policy for digital images in American art museums." KDCS undertook this study of USA art museum policy and practice regarding the market for digital resources. 120 U.S. art museums were surveyed, with in-depth interviews conducted at 20 museums. The executive summary and link to the full report can be viewed here.

This is an extension of a 2002 report that looked into pricing policy with U.K. and other European libraries and museums. That report was entitled, "Exploring Charging Models for Digital Cultural Heritage: Digital image resource cost efficiency and income generation
compared with analog resources."

The bottom line is that museums are not charging what they could be (of course) and are giving up opportunities. The reports give recommendations which will undoubtedly create interesting discussions.

'Blog' picked as word of the year

This article includes a list of the top 10 words of 2004, according to dictionary publisher Merriam-Webster.

Receiving e-mail updates from Digitization 101

Well, the e-mail updates process stopped working, but I believe it has been fixed. In general, there are 2 - 3 new postings a week in this blog, so you might want to check to see if you have missed anything. Recently postings include:

• The Innovate Gateway (an innovative e-journal)
• Lists of digitization vendors
• Teaching about digital assets
• David Weinberger's presentation
• Wikipedia entries on digitization
• The Digital Future: A Library of Congress Series

By the way, the e-mail updates are sent between midnight and 6 a.m. (EST).

Also remember that you can get stories "feed" to you through your RSS reader. Many RSS readers are available and even Yahoo! can act as your reader.

The Innovate Gateway (an innovative e-journal)

I received this following e-mail announcement about an e-journal that focuses on online education. That may be of interest for those of you who are involved with online education AND those who are looking to develop a more formal type of blog. One of the goals of this journal is to get people to comment -- in other words, to make it interactive.

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The December 2004/January 2005 issue of Innovate will be available at http://innovateonline.info one minute after midnight ET on December1. I am distributing this announcement now because one minute aftermidnight on December 1 ET I will be on a heavier-than-air craft winging my way to participate in the Online Educa Berlin conference that begins later that day. :-)

Innovate is a peer-reviewed, bimonthly e-journal published as a public service by the Fischler School of Education and Human Services at Nova Southeastern University. It features creative practices and cutting-edge research on the use of information technology to enhance education.

The issue begins with my interview of Bill Graves, a pioneer ininformation management. Graves offers insights on service, program, and course redesign strategies and explains how they can improve educational delivery while lowering institutional costs.

The authors of our second article use research on adult learning to identify pedagogical strategies and practical techniques for writing instructional articles in adult online education. Verne Moreland and Herbert Bivens put their recommendations into concrete form with an alternate version of their Innovate article in prime educational format.

Bruce Howerton and Nicholas Moss follow with individual articles on multimedia teaching resources at a prominent dental school. Howerton reviews the technical potential of three software programs to enliven traditional dental lectures. Moss describes his classroom use of these programs, complete with results and student reactions. Both authors provide sample multimedia materials for readers to explore.

The next two articles focus on online instruction. John Sener discusses the scrutiny that online learning constantly undergoes, pointing out the problematic nature of comparing it to traditional education and arguing for a separate frame of evaluation. Mark Mabrito leads us into the heart of the online learning experience with a review of the tools, techniques, and policies he uses to enhance interaction on three fronts.

The issue concludes with another interview, a conversation betweenboard member Scott Windham and Dee Dickinson, the chief learning officerof New Horizons for Learning. Dickinson reflects on her organization's past, present, and future and points readers to its amazing array of resources.

Logging on is simple--but we invite you to do more than simply read. Use the journal's one-button features to comment on articles, share material with colleagues and friends, and participate in Innovate-Live webcasts and discussion forums. Join us in exploring the best uses of technology to improve the ways we think, learn, and live.

Please forward this announcement to appropriate mailing lists and tocolleagues who want to use IT tools to advance their work.

Many thanks.
Jim

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James L. Morrison
Editor-in-Chief, Innovate
http://www.innovateonline.info
Professor Emeritus of Educational Leadership
UNC-Chapel Hill

Lists of digitization vendors

When you're looking for a digitization vendor, it would be helpful to not only be able to find a list of vendors, but to have that list give you information about the vendors so you don't waste your time on needless phone calls or mailings. Unfortunately, for those of us in NYS, the lists maintained by the state are not nearly complete and do not provide enough information to tell you what the vendor really does. That "problem" only has given people like me the impetus to create better lists and make them available on the Internet.

I have created a list of digitization vendors over the last several years. The list focuses primarily on those in New York State, but does contain information on some vendors elsewhere in the U.S. as well as pointers to other lists.

The most current version of the list is not online yet. (It is part of a digitization plan developed for the Capital District Library Council.) I'll announce when it is available. However, two older versions are available as part of plans completed for the Northern New York Library Network and the South Central Regional Library Council. These plans are located at:

http://www.lakenet.org/scrlc/ad_comm/acits/2002digplan.pdf
http://www.nnyln.org/NNYLN09232003.pdf

In both cases, look in the appendix for information on vendors. These lists are more comprehensive that any others (except the one to be published in the CDLC plan). And the information is not that far out of date, so these are still quite useful. Honest!