Newman Library Idea Lab

Attendees
Janey Chao, Lisa Ellis, Stephen Francoeur, Harold Gee, Joseph Hartnett, Jin Ma, Rita Ormsby, Michael Waldman, Kevin Wolff

Discussion
We had a wide-ranging discussion of ebooks and ebook readers:

• HarperCollins limiting ebook checkouts on titles in OverDrive to 26 times
• Video by public librarians identifying HarperCollins print titles that have circulated
  HarperCollins 26+ checkouts

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/Je90XRRrruM" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

• criteria we have in mind when we are considering adding an ebook to the library collection:
  • # of simultaneous users
  • is it a license  or a purchase (with hosting fees)
• the kinds of titles where an ebook might make sense:
  • reference books
  • heavily circulated titles (such as Malcolm X’s autobiography)
  • frequently stolen or lost titles
  • technical books
  • manuals and handbooks
  • test prep books
  • books on hot button topics
  • poetry and short story collections
  • literature anthologies
• Sarah Glassmeyer’s blog post (“HCOD, eBook User Bill of Rights and Math“) about whether a boycott of Harper would have any noticeable affect
• ebrary is working on a service that would let users download titles
• Arthur’s blog post about e textbooks
• Flatworld Knowledge
• another CIS class will use the Kindles this spring
• putting public domain works used in the Great Works class on a reader

Attendees: Arthur Downing, Stephen Francoeur, Randy Hensley, Ellen Kaufman, Louise Klusek, Jin Ma, Ryan Phillips, Erica Sauer, Mike Waldman

iPad
We started off discussing the iPad release and some of the criticism of the device as being too locked down, filled with DRM restrictions, and further the use of apps, which some view as a problematic development that signals an effort to return to walled gardens of the web of the early 1990s. The device seems geared more toward consumption of content as opposed to a tool for creation. It was suggested the iPad may appeal to baby boomers looking for a simple computer. We also discussed how it may transform the world of periodicals.

New Paywalls on the Web
The discussion of the iPad led us to a discussion of the creation of new paywalls on the web. We referred to:

• Newsday only getting 35 paid subscribers three months after it moved all content behind a paywall
• The New York Times announcing it would put up a paywall again
• Magazine publishers looking to database vendors for exclusive content deals (as in the recent case with EBSCO)

RDA Updates
This page on the CUNY Technical Services Wiki offered some updates about RDA from the ALA Midwinter meeting, including news about ALA’s announcement of pricing for the RDA Toolkit. More news about the testing and release of RDA can be found on the Library of Congress Bibliographic Control Working Group site.

Records in CUNY+ for CDs in Naxos
Baruch will be loading records into CUNY for the CDs that have available in streaming format via the Naxos database. Those catalog records will include direct URLs to albums in Naxos. Track-level records, though, will be not part of those catalog records. We were also reminded that the reference wiki includes instructions about how a professor can create a playlist in Naxos that can be shared with students.

New design for CUNY Website
We looked at the new CUNY website, which is still in preview mode right now. The CUNY Portal and other CUNY systems on the web will likely be redesigned in the image of the soon-to-be-launched main CUNY site.

CUNYfirst
We got an update on where we are in the rollout of systems in CUNYfirst, which brings together silos of data relating to finance, HR (now referred to as HCM for “human capital management), and student information.

LibGuides
We looked at a LibGuide set up for a LIB 1015 class and commented on the draft of a guide for MLA style. We also looked at the main LibGuides page for the whole system to see which ones in the system were most popular.