D-Lib Magazine November/December 2008
Volume 14 Number 11/12
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/november08/zuber/11zuber.html

A Study of Institutional Repository Holdings by Academic Discipline
By Peter A. Zuber

"The results from this research help to illustrate both an overall acceptance rate of institutional repositories as well as collection patterns in institutional repository content based on contributions from various academic disciplines.

H1. Institutional repositories do not yet demonstrate broad, discipline diverse contributions.

The assessment of collection diversity and coverage revealed only one institution whose content exceeded a fifty percent coverage rate. On average, of the institutions surveyed, only nineteen percent of the forty-seven disciplines were represented with at least one holding. Given that the disciplines included were only those encountered during the survey, the percentage would tend to drop even more if all known disciplines were included. The hypothesis is supported.

H2. Academic disciplines having prior history in pre-print and e-print practices contribute the greatest percentage of content.

Engineering contributed the majority of content of any discipline with thirty-six percent. Combining Physical and Social Sciences created a thirteen percent contribution; nearly twenty-three percentage points lower than Engineering. The combined disciplines ranked third nationally, two percentage points below Business, with fifteen percent. The hypothesis is not supported.

H3. The majority of institutional repositories do not provide incentives for publication, such as highlighting recent additions.

In total, eighteen institutions sponsored repositories, and fourteen, or seventy-eight percent of those provided incentives either as "Paper of the Day," "Most recent," or "Most popular." The location of incentive(s) varied depending on the site, with all BePress installations having the incentive(s) on the main page, and most DSpace installations having a single incentive on sub-pages. The hypothesis is not supported."

http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue57/waaijers-et-al/

Leo Waaijers writes about copyright, prestige and cost control in the world of open access while in two appendices Bas Savenije and Michel Wesseling compare the costs of open access publishing and subscriptions/licences for their respective institutions.

Excerpt:

Recommendation 1

Transferring the copyright in a publication has become a relic of the past; nowadays a “licence to publish” is sufficient. The author retains the copyrights. Institutions should make the use of such a licence part of their institutional policy.

Recommendation 2

The classic impact factor for a journal is not a good yardstick for the prestige of an author. Modern digital technology makes it possible to tailor the measurement system to the author. Institutions should, when assessing scientists and scholars, switch to this type of measurement and should also promote its further development.

Recommendation 3

The traditional subscription model for circulating publications is needlessly complex and expensive. Switching to Open Access, however, requires co-ordination that goes beyond the level of individual institutions. Supra-institutional organisations, for example the European University Association, should take the necessary initiative.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/docs/Dems-letter/

Thanks to M. Schindler.

http://www.alexandriaarchive.org/blog/?p=120

http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2008/11/blog-notes-oa-and-greek-cultural.html

See also:

http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/5319473/

http://www.archiviststoolkit.org/downloads/index.shtml

The Archivists' Toolkit version 1.5 has been released.

Here's an excerpt from the home page that describes the software:

The Archivists' Toolkit™, or the AT, is the first open source archival data management system to provide broad, integrated support for the management of archives. It is intended for a wide range of archival repositories. The main goals of the AT are to support archival processing and production of access instruments, promote data standardization, promote efficiency, and lower training costs.

Currently, the application supports accessioning and describing archival materials; establishing names and subjects associated with archival materials, including the names of donors; managing locations for the materials; and exporting EAD finding aids, MARCXML records, and METS, MODS and Dublin Core records. Future functionality will be built to support repository user/resource use information, appraisal for archival materials, expressing and managing rights information, and interoperability with user authentication systems.

From Archives-L

If anyone wants to see a nice picture of the setting of the remains of the Tabularium, the archives of Ancient Rome, there is a nice one at: http://www.panoramio.com/photo/662379

According to Posner, it came close to functioning like something kind of resembling a modern archives in the late (ancient) Republic, but most of its functions were either decentralized or moved to the palace under the Empire. Anyway, you can see in the middle left portion of the picture behind some trees, which unfortunately obscure the arches which are the main surviving elements. The building was restored (maybe) under the Claudius the historian, naturally. After its as an archives, it still was in the preservation business, for it was used (centuries later) as a warehouse for salt. Sic transit gloria. To date, no record cartons or document cases have been found.

For more information see http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/Places/Europe/Italy/Lazio/Roma/Rome/_Texts/PLATOP*/Tabularium.html and especially Ernst Posner's Archives in the Ancient World.

Bob Shuster
BGC Archives

Perkins 28: Testimony from the Secret Court Files of 1920 documents the testimony from 1920, when Harvard University convened a secret court to interview, charge and discipline students who were suspected of homosexuality.

Ein Film von Michael Van Devere.

In 1920, Harvard University convened a secret court to interview, charge and discipline students suspected of being homosexual.
Thirty-seven men testified before the court, including a tutor, an assistant professor, numerous Harvard students and several Boston men.
After two weeks of testimony, eight Harvard undergraduates were forced to withdraw, one of whom committed suicide.
Based on actual testimony and court documents, Perkins 28: Testimony from the Secret Court Files of 1920 dramatizes the closed-room trials, nine intense episodes of testimony before the court.

Filmed in April 2008 at the Guesthouse of the Monastery of the Society of Saint John the Evangelist in Cambridge, MA.

Premiere screening 0n November 17,

The Obama administration can act quickly after taking office in January to reverse the secrecy trend of the last eight years and restore openness in the executive branch, according to a set of new proposals posted online today by the National Security Archive.

http://www.gwu.edu/%7Ensarchiv/news/20081112/index.htm
http://archieven.blogspot.com/2008/11/obama-administration-can-act-quickly.html

http://www.jisc.ac.uk/news/stories/2008/11/greatwarlaunch.aspx

http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/gwa/