http://www.sennoma.net/main/archives/2009/05/

http://bibwild.wordpress.com/2009/05/05/shame-on-elsevier/

Update:
http://libr.org/plg/elsevier.php "Progressive Librarians Guild Calls for Elsevier to End Corrupt Publishing Practices and for Library Associations to Take Advocacy Role on Behalf of Scientific Integrity"

" .... The career of Jim Henson begins long before "The Muppet Show." "He did hundreds of television commercials in the 1960s," says Karen Falk, Director of Archives for the Jim Henson Company [What a job!]. "Many of them could stand alone as comic strips. They were very charming.".....
Falk, who says she was a big fan of The Muppet Show, is one of the few who have been able to pull back the curtain, if you will, and see everything Jim Henson had his hands on.
"When I started going through these files, I realized 'Oh my gosh, we really need to get this stuff out there,'" Falk recalls from her early days on the job. "People will really want to see this."...."
Link:
http://cache.trafficmp.com/adv/gadget/090508-143145_ig.html

The Wilmington Library plans to pay for a new roof, heating and air conditioning system and other repairs for its Rodney Square building by selling 14 illustrations N.C. Wyeth painted for the 1920 publication of "Robinson Crusoe."

http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009905070356

There is now a discussion in the EXLIBRIS list on this topic. Here is my opinion:

All deaccessioning is bad if there is a loss of cultural property.

(i) Cultural property (or heritage) is a property of the public. It's
the tangible counterpart of the PUBLIC DOMAIN.

(ii) All deaccessioning is bad if the work in question is part of an
ensemble (provenance) which deserves protection as a whole.

(iii) All deaccessioning is bad if there is any doubt that the donor
of the item wouldn't agree. He has in most cases given the work in a
"safe harbour" not to a "chamber of assets" which can be made to money
in a financial crisis. If the work wasn't donated the opinion of
important donors should be heard. Selling a work can have collateral
damages for the institution-donor-relation.

(iv) All deaccessioning is bad if it is made in a non-transparent
clandestine way. There must be a public discussion in which all voices
should be heard.

(v) Each cultural institution is a part of a boader network of
heritage preserving institutions.

(vi) If a work is selled at auction there is a high risk that unique
pieces will disappear in private collections not available to the
public.

(vii) If a rare non-unique work is selled at auction there is a risk
that scholars have to make long travels to find another copy.

(viii) Deaccessioning is bad if pseudo-duplicates are selled which are
under some aspects unique (provenance, written marginalia, etc.).

(ix) Deaccessioning is bad if there is an at least minor loss of trust
in the persuasion that the institution takes serious the duty to
preserve heritage for the posterity. The "collection's scope" cannot
be changed arbitrarily.

This is an opinion of an European point of view.

In a 21st-century version of the age of discovery, teams of computer scientists, conservationists and scholars are fanning out across the globe in a race to digitize crumbling literary treasures.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124173896716198603.html

From EXLIBRIS list:

The following, just in from a source I trust:

During his tenure at the University of San Francisco (USF), President Stephen Privett has been devoted in giving all his time and energy to its benefit. In the current economic crisis, he is tasked with painfully difficult, thankless, and unpopular decisions to identify academic programs to discontinue and assets to sell, if necessary, to stabilize USF's finances.
On Sunday, 10 May 2009, the San Francisco Chronicle published a story on the cancellation of USF's M.A. in Theology program amid protest. Earlier, on April 30th, the lead story in the campus newspaper, The Foghorn, told of assets identified for possible sale, primarily USF's renowned rare book collections, but even including the possibility of the Lone Mountain campus. The story may be accessed at

http://foghorn.usfca.edu/2009/04/rare-books-could-become-financial-safety-net/

(or Google foghorn rare books).

Faculty and library donors and supporters have been appalled and dismayed that the Library could be stripped of its collections, virtually all of which were donated to the Library or purchased with donated funds. In the last 50 years, under the visionary leadership of Fr. William Monihan, S.J., Bay Area families and others worldwide have generously contributed books, manuscripts, artworks and funds to create the Gleeson Library and its Donohue Rare Book Room which, together, State Librarian emeritus Kevin Starr has described as "an epicenter of Jesuit Humanism" and "a library second to none." Donors reasonably anticipated that their collections might have a permanent and secure home there.
Unfortunately, President Privett, has not only identified library treasures for sale, he has already quietly and anonymously started to consign them for sale at auction. He recently stripped from the Timken-Zinkann Collection, an early founding core collection of the Library, a series of original woodcuts and engravings - mostly iconic images of Catholic and Christian tradition - by leading Renaissance artist and author, Albrecht Durer, in effect destroying the integrity of the collection. Together with an early, original Rembrandt etching, the Durer prints were anonymously offered for sale at auction Tuesday morning, 11 May, at Bonhams, despite a valiant last-minute effort on the part of faculty and library supporters to persuade Privett to suspend the sale.

See http://www.bonhams.com/cgi-bin/public.sh/pubweb/publicSite.r?screen=MySearchResults&saction=search&sFreeText=durer on the Bonhams website for a record of the sales.

In a down market, only the Rembrandt and a few of the Durers sold. Those of us who support the integrity of the Library's collections, hope the unsold items may be returned to their home of many years for the continued benefit of students, researchers and faculty.

According to the Forhorn Online story cited above, Privett insists that, if the items compiled from the Rare Book Room were ever sold, they would be "non-book items, duplicate volumes, or single volumes, not part of a series or collection." As for the Durer collection, Privett said, "They (the prints) were discovered by accident. We have an art gallery, not a museum. We didn't have a place for them."

Sadly, one of the Durer engravings sold (for $67,100 including buyer's premium) is "St. Jerome in His Study," an image which noted author Stephen Mitchell has described movingly in his writing. St. Jerome is the patron saint of librarians whose feast day is September 30th. Traditionally, every September his engraving was exhibited in the Gleeson Library to bring blessings and protection to the Library itself, to the librarians who selflessly work there, and to all those who research and patronize it. Whose or what image will now bless and protect USF's Gleeson Library? Perhaps, come next September, some one will hang black mourning cloth where once the image of St. Jerome was displayed.
Ironically, President Privett has stated that money made from the sale of Rare Book Room items will go towards the renovation of the room itself. Once collections are compromised and books, manuscripts, artworks, ephemera and related items have been cannibalized from them, for what pupose will the Rare Book Room be renovated?
Both history Professor Martin Claussen, claussenm@usfca.edu, and Gleeson Library Associates Co-President, Walrave Jansen, wallyj@ix.netcom.com, have written eloquently about saving USF's rare book collections and are actively working to do so. President Privett has agreed to meet with faculty tomorrow (Thursday 14 May), to discuss the situation.
President Privett emphasized in the campus newspaper that he was only making worst case scenario contingency plans. The fact that he had already quietly and secretly consigned items from the Library for sale at auction - courageously uncovered and exposed by history Professor Martin Claussen - belies the contingent nature of his plans. Contingencies have a way of becoming realities all too quickly!
When one thinks of Gleeson librarians Father William Monihan and D. Steven Corey, and all the collectors and donors who contributed to make the rare book collections of USF what they are, it is dismal to recognize what is happening today.
In addition to Prof. Claussen, Walrave Jansen, Gleeson Library Associates Co-President, has been doing remarkable work to attempt to staunch the bleeding of the Donohue Rare Book Room holdings. One thing that amazes me is that the University President seems to have taken over and is attempting to micromanage deaccessioning, something that I would think should be the responsibility of the Library Dean and Library staff members.
Should you wish to express yourself to USF President Stephen Privett, or Library Dean Tyrone Cannon, they can be addressed respectively at privett@usfca.edu and cannont@usfca.edu.

I have not yet been able to verify all of the details of this story, but (for openers) it's clear that the prints were indeed auctioned off. The most offensive part of this sad tale is that the sales were conducted surreptitiously.

I think that the first order of business is to alert journalist friends and colleagues; there's an important story percolating here.

Terry Belanger
University Professor, Honorary Curator of Special Collections
Director, Rare Bk School : University of Virginia
Rare Book School : PO 400103 : Charlottesville, VA 22904-4103
Email belanger@virginia.edu : Phone 434-924-8851 : Fax 434-924-8824

Update: http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/5705271/

http://www.pilgrimarchives.nl/

Below you will find an announcement of Cornell
University Library's new policy on digital copies
of public domain works. Basically, the Library
will continue to charge for services we provide,
but we are not going to try to exert any
downstream control over copies of public domain
works. This applies to items that we digitize as
well as items already in digital form, and it
applies to both unpublished and published material.

Peter Hirtle

From
News.Library.Cornell:

>FOR RELEASE:
>Contact: Peter Hirtle
>Phone: (607) 255-4033
>E-mail: pbh6@cornell.edu
>Cornell University Library Removes All
>Restrictions on Use of Public Domain Reproductions
>
>ITHACA, N.Y. (May 11, 2009) – In a dramatic
>change of practice, Cornell University Library
>has announced it will no longer require its
>users to seek permission to publish public
>domain items duplicated from its collections.
>Instead, users may now use reproductions of
>public domain works made for them by the Library
>or available via Web sites, without seeking any further permission.
>
>The Library, as the producer of digital
>reproductions made from its collections, has in
>the past licensed the use of those
>reproductions. Individuals and corporations that
>failed to secure permission to repurpose these
>reproductions violated their agreement with the
>Library. "The threat of legal action, however,"
>noted Anne R. Kenney, Carl A. Kroch University
>Librarian, "does little to stop bad actors while
>at the same time limits the good uses that can
>be made of digital surrogates. We decided it was
>more important to encourage the use of the
>public domain materials in our holdings than to impose roadblocks."
>
>The immediate impetus for the new policy is
>Cornell’s donation of more than 70,000 digitized
>public domain books to the Internet Archive
>(details at
> http://www.archive.org/details/cornell>www.archive.org/details/cornell ).

> http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/guidelines.html>cdl.library.cornell.edu/guidelines.html .
>
>
>About Cornell University Library One of the
>leading academic research libraries in the
>United States, Cornell University Library is a
>highly valued partner in teaching, research and
>learning at Cornell University. The Library
>offers cutting-edge programs and a full spectrum
>of services, rare books and manuscripts and a
>growing network of digital resources. The
>Library’s outstanding collections – from
>medieval manuscripts to hip hop and from ancient
>Chinese texts to comic books – preserve the past
>and pave the way for future scholarship. To
>learn more about Cornell University Library,
>visit < http://library.cornell.edu>library.cornell.edu .

Comment: This is great! No more Copyfraud at Cornell.





http://cidc.library.cornell.edu/adw/ADWHlights/Largest/Louven.htm

http://www.anthony-clark.com/blog1/

In my opinion, it is time for Sharon Fawcett to go. Either through voluntary resignation or administrative dismissal, I believe Ms. Fawcett ought no longer to remain as the Assistant Archivist for Presidential Libraries.

National Archives of Mongolia (Archives for Film and Audio-Visual Records)

http://www.archives.gov.mn



Via
http://archieven.blogspot.com/2009/05/national-archives-of-mongolia.html