Better administration of capital grants could reduce unnecessary expenditures on mass transit projects. Report by the Comptroller General of the United States.

Mode of access: Internet.

Guidelines for assessing the environmental impact of public mass transportation projects: executive summary.

Transportation Department, Office of Environment and Safety, Washington, D.C.

Guidelines for assessing the environmental impact of public mass transportation projects. Notebook 1: purpose and procedures. Final report.

Transportation Department, Office of Environment and Safety, Washington, D.C.

Guidelines for assessing the environmental impact of public mass transportation projects. Notebook 2: social impacts. Final report.

Transportation Department, Office of Environment and Safety, Washington, D.C.

Guidelines for assessing the environmental impact of public mass transportation projects. Notebook 4: physical impacts. Final report.

Transportation Department, Office of Environment and Safety, Washington, D.C.

Guidelines for assessing the environmental impact of public mass transportation projects. Notebook 5: environmental assessment reference book. Final report.

Transportation Department, Office of Environment and Safety, Washington, D.C.

Guidelines for assessing the environmental impact of public mass transportation projects. Notebook 3: economic impacts. Final report.

Transportation Department, Office of Environment and Safety, Washington, D.C.

Digitization Projects Carried out by the Mathematical Institute Belgrade

In this paper some current digitization projects carried out by the Mathematical Institute of Serbian Academy of Science and Arts Belgrade and the Faculty of Mathematics Belgrade are described. The projects concern developing of a virtual library of retro-digitized books and an Internet data base and presentation of electronic editions of some leading Serbian journals in science and arts, and the work on the South-Eastern European Digitization Initiative (SEEDI).

Non-display uses of digital works: Google Books and beyond

With the advent of mass digitization projects, such as the Google Book Search, a peculiar shift has occurred in the way that copyright works are dealt with. Contrary to what has so far been the case, works are turned into machine-readable data to be automatically processed for various purposes without the expression of works being displayed to the public. In the Google Book Settlement Agreement, this new kind of usage is referred to as ‘non-display uses’ of digital works. The legitimacy of these uses has not yet been tested by Courts and does not comfortably fit in the current copyright doctrine, plainly because the works are not used as works but as something else, namely as data. Since non-display uses may prove to be a very lucrative market in the near future, with the potential to affect the way people use copyright works, we examine non-display uses under the prism of copyright principles to determine the boundaries of their legitimacy. Through this examination, we provide a categorization of the activities carried out under the heading of ‘non-display uses’, we examine their lawfulness under the current copyright doctrine and approach the phenomenon from the spectrum of data protection law that could apply, by analogy, to the use of copyright works as processable data.

A Call to Arms

This month I’m using my column to issue a call to arms. No, it isn’t a call to arms for war, though it is going to be battle. It is a call to professional librarians who are interested in their jobs lasting more than a few more years. That sounds a bit hysterical but I don’t mean for it to. Yet is it hyperbolic? I don’t think so. We need to rethink, recast, redefine, and refresh our professional métier. I think the last twenty-four months make it imperative that we do so now

Partner Projects of “Ivan Vazov” Public Library – Plovdiv on Digitization of Cultural and Historical Heritage

Digitization offers excellent opportunities for the preservation and safe-keeping of valuable library collections. The article recounts the first coordinated attempts of “Ivan Vazov” Public Library – Plovdiv at digitizing some of its treasured collections such as manuscripts, early printed books and archives through partner projects and revealing them to the world community.

Preserving Electronic Theses through the MetaArchive network

In the recent years most libraries have focused on mass digitization programs and keeping electronic born documents, showing and organizing them in a repository. While those repositories have evolved to a much more manageable systems focusing on the user expectations and introducing web 2.0 tools, digital preservation is still in the to-do list of most of them. There is quite a lot of studies focused on preservation and some complex models exist, unfortunately, very few practical systems are running and its quite difficult for a library to get involved in a solution already tested by others. The CBUC (Consortium of University Catalan Libraries) runs TDX, an ETD repository now keeping more than 10.000 full text thesis from any of the 12 university members. After 10 years running TDX a solid preservation system was needed to ensure every thesis would be kept as it was regardless what happens to the repository. The perfect solution was found in the MetaArchive cooperative, this is the effort of many insitutions to keep a copy of each other content through a newtwork using the LOCKSS software as a mechanism to keep track of any change. The presentation will shortly introduce what TDX and MetaArchive is but will, in a practical way, show how the LOCKSS network for presrervation works. Finally a summary of the benefits of the overall experience will be shown.

The tension between academic knowledge production and online peer production

Peer-reviewed

Is the Google Book Decision an Unqualified Good?

Unless you’ve been living on a deserted island or stranded (or not?) like the pelagic castaway Jose Ivan (http://bit.ly/1fq6JsJ) for over a year, you could not possibly have missed the news thatGoogle’s mass digitization project, Google Books, won its case.