ALA 2010 Annual Meeting Report

ALA Annual 2010 Joint Meeting of the Philosophical Religious and Theological (PRT) and Classical Medieval Renaissance Discussion Group (Washington, D.C. Saturday, June 26th, 2010)

New Developments in Online Publication

Convened by Colin McCaffrey, Washington University in St. Louis, and Joshua Barton, Michigan State University.

1. George Leaman, Director of the Philosophy Documentation Center (PDC), debuted a beta version of PDC’s forthcoming product, Philosophy Research Index. PDC is actively seeking feedback on their new resource. Those interested can see further information, including how to set up a free trial, here:
http://secure.pdcnet.org/pdc/bvdb.nsf/journal?openform&journal=pdc_pri

Leaman demonstrated many features from a live instance of the index. He emphasized that they are striving for "complete" coverage of a portion of philosophical literature, rather than selective coverage. A goal of the product is to include bibliographic information for philosophy literature in many Western languages. To this end, the index includes a translation feature, to roughly translate information such as article titles into English. Other features include faceted browsing, links to share items via social networking sites, and a timeline visualization of search results.

When asked about how PDC’s product would compete with Philosopher’s Index, the established philosophy index used in North America today, Leaman pointed to his product’s scope. He indicated that materials would be indexed more thoroughly, not selectively, and that non-English materials would have a greater representation. His hope is that North American and European bodies of philosophical literature will find a greater shared readership through the use of PDC's forthcoming index.

2. Damon Zucca, Executive Editor, Reference Division, at Oxford University Press, discussed two products: Oxford Biblical Studies Online (OBSO) and Oxford Bibliographies Online (OBO). OBSO brings together Oxford’s reference works on the Bible into one integrated resource. Presenting from screen captures, Zucca demonstrated OBSO as an immersive biblical studies tool, appearing to have relatively seamless navigation between the various resources within. More information is available on the OBSO site: http://www.oxfordbiblicalstudies.com/ The full list of OBSO contents is here: http://www.oup.com/obso/whats_inside/

The other product, Oxford Bibliographies Online, consists of a series of discipline-based bibliography modules that can be searched and accessed together or separately, such as Classics, Philosophy and Renaissance & Reformation. OBO modules bring together citations to the essential literature through the guidance of an expert in the field. Each entry (e.g. Feminist Philosophy in the Philosophy module) has its own scholarly expert guiding the user through citations to essential and helpful works, from general to specific. Citations included are not limited to Oxford publications. More information is available at the OBO site: http://www.oxfordbibliographiesonline.com/

3. "Moving to Online Publications: Practices, Policies, and Goals of the Center for Hellenic Studies." Noel Spencer and Jeremy Linn presented an overview of the Center of Hellenic Studies's online publication program.

CHS is a research institute located in Washington, D.C. affiliated with Harvard University. It was established in 1962 as "an educational center in the field of Hellenic Studies designed to re-discover the humanism of the Hellenic Greeks." Responding to trends affecting libraries and publishing, CHS is taking advantage of digital technologies to expand its publishing program online. This includes publishing monographs and journals (Classics@) as well as innovative projects in the "digital humanities," such as the Homer Multitext. CHS has also established a IT/Humanities Non-Residential Fellowship for scholars working on technological projects.

CHS takes advantage of open-source software and open standards for publishing online, utilizing TEI-XML for its documents and developing an interactive structure for using texts online. It has moved authors into the production processes, having them submit marked-up text. Texts are released with a creative-commons license. Navigating copyright issues, especially regarding images, in a way that maximizes the reach of publications while ensuring proper attribution remains a challenge.

Presentation Slides (on Slideshare)
Note: The background images for these slides where compiled from the Venetus A manuscript of Homer (Marcianus Graecus Z 454=822, currently in the Marciana Library, Venice).

Midwinter Minutes

Philosophy, Religion, and Theological Studies Discussion Group

Midwinter Meeting – Philadelphia

Ted Chaffin led the group meeting.

1. Discussion of Sources

Index Islamicus. Islamic studies is a growing area in many schools. It has a significant impact to many collection areas because it is interdisciplinary. Many members have purchased Index Islamicus. Ebsco and CSA provide interfaces, as does the publisher Brill. Members discussed the frustration associated with the tool since it indexes sources that often must be ILL’d.

Oxford Islamic Studies. No one in the group has purchased this title. It includes 2 versions of the Koran, some commentary, and full text books that Oxford has published.

Project Muse now includes all 37 volumes of the Journal of the History of Philosophy. The Journal of Religious Studies will be available by 2009.

RAMBI - Index of Articles on Jewish Studies http://jnul.huji.ac.il/rambi/

"Material listed in Rambi is compiled from thousands of periodicals and from collections of articles - in Hebrew, Yiddish, and European languages- mainly from the holdings of the Jewish National and University Library…." Few members were familiar with this database.

Philosopher’s Index via the Ebsco interface is coming soon. Currently, members use either CSA or Ovid for that source.

There was a brief discussion on Federated Searching. Most folks have had limited success with it. One member mentioned the Serials Solution interface to facilitate federated searching.

Resources for College Libraries and Choice do not cover Christianity at the depth necessary for Christian colleges or universities. ATLA’s Atlantis listserv may be a good source. Information regarding Atlantis is available: http://www.atla.com/member/atlantis_discussion_groups/atlawrig.html

ATLA hosts an annual conference that is useful. During 2008, however, that conference conflicts with ALA Annual.

American Academy of Religion is another group that might be useful to work with. They also have a good conference. Information is available: http://www.aarweb.org/

Someone asked about a good database covering Asian Philosophy. It is hoped that members will discuss this further on the blog since no one present was aware of a particular electronic source. Brill has fine print sources on this topic.

2. Format for upcoming meetings

There had been a proposal at the 2007 Annual meeting that members would present on topics of interest. No one has volunteered yet to do so, though.

Should we bring in external speakers? Consider the location of each meeting and seek out professors or organizations local to the conference? Example: ATLA is located in Chicago.

Again, the group was encouraged to brainstorm on the blog.

3. Collection Analysis Tools

Some libraries represented have used the World Cat analysis tool. They have encountered problems aligning circulation statistics with the data. They also noted that it is difficult to limit comparisons to regional libraries.

Bowker has a book analysis tool that is more successful with comparisons to peer institutions and/or core lists. Ulrich’s is then employed for journal comparisons.

4. Collection Development Policies

Should they be specific or generalized? Some libraries post them online or send a copy to the relevant department. Would it be useful to post policies in a wiki format so stakeholders can edit them? Would it be helpful to supply example policies on the blog?

5. Vendors / Publishers / Services

Blackwell’s doesn’t permit searching by format. How can we express needs to vendors? As a block, librarians should have some financial leverage. ACRL has a Publisher/Vendor/Library Relations Committee. Miranda will contact them to see if they are interested in collaborating on a program related to the needs of collectors. It was noted that RUSA/LAMA is sponsoring a similar discussion in an open forum format for vendors to discuss open source issues.

Faculty at some institutions contribute to forming the approval plan. Small schools, however, can not use approval plans because their budgets do not accommodate such purchasing.

6. Alms for Jihad

Alms for jihad : charity and terrorism in the Islamic world by J. Millard Burr and Robert O. Collins was published by Cambridge University. One of the philanthropists listed in the book has sued and Cambridge requested that universities and other libraries pull the book from shelves.

A common response to this request was to place the book in special collections as it would now become a rare book. Other schools glued the letter as an erratum into the book and left it on the borrowing shelves. There were concerns, however, that a patron would destroy the copy if it was left public. This highlights the value of the print copies, since an electronic version would have been easily edited. Members noted that such censorship is usually the purview of school libraries and that academic libraries rarely encounter such issues.

7. Instruction

Many members teach in religion or philosophy courses. For the most part, this occurs at the introductory level: what sources are available, what are special collections, and how to locate materials. New graduate students often receive an orientation also.

Electronic classrooms permit active learning. One member explained how to break students into groups and have them teach the various databases. Other examples of working with classes included visiting the classes and sitting in on discussions.

This led to a broader discussion on liaison activities and outreach to faculty members. The problem is how to introduce one’s self, library resources in spite of faculty resistance. Suggestions included finding out about the faculty member, how they prefer to receive communication, aligning with the goals of the department, capitalizing on word of mouth or faculty referrals. Also mentioned was visiting the department with a laptop and food or taking a faculty member out to lunch.