LISNews: Hawkish On Libraries Since 1999

Students, faculty decry Penn plan to cut math and science libraries

A plan by the University of Pennsylvania to cut back on two of its branch libraries - one for engineering and the other for math, physics, and astronomy - has yielded an outcry from students and professors who say the books are critical to their studies and research.

Read more at:
philly.com/philly/education/20140311_Students__faculty_decry_Penn_plan_to_cut_math_and_science_libraries.html

http://kingsreview.co.uk/magazine/blog/2014/02/24/how-academia-and-publishing-are-destroying...

"I think there was a time, and I’m trying to trace the history when the rights to publish, the copyright, was owned jointly by the authors and the journal. Somehow that’s why the journals insist they will not publish your paper unless you sign that copyright over. It is never stated in the invitation, but that’s what you sell in order to publish. And everybody works for these journals for nothing. There’s no compensation. There’s nothing. They get everything free. They just have to employ a lot of failed scientists, editors who are just like the people at Homeland Security, little power grabbers in their own sphere.

If you send a PDF of your own paper to a friend, then you are committing an infringement."

http://www.inforum.com/event/article/id/426662/

"There were factual inaccuracies contained in Cali Owings’ Feb. 3 article and her use of factually flawed documents to negatively and unfairly portray my client Michele Reid.

Reid left her position of dean of libraries voluntarily and without knowledge of Provost J. Bruce Rafert’s apparent intention to terminate her employment as North Dakota State University negotiated the settlement. She received a reasonable settlement in exchange for withdrawing her claims against NDSU, having concluded that under the current administration, she had accomplished as much as she could as dean of libraries. "

The Evolving Role of University Libraries
http://today.uconn.edu/blog/2014/01/the-evolving-role-of-university-libraries/
Since we are assessing our materials and their usage, I’m working to reframe the conversation to one where we talk more about stewardship, content reformatting, and preservation. Although the usage may be low for a book in the middle of a densely populated campus like this, we’re anticipating that the need still exists, not that it’s going to be met elsewhere. When we make an investment in preserving something, whether it be here or a different facility off campus, we have to believe that the need for it still exists.