Governor Paterson has signed legislation (S.3903 Oppenheimer/A.6154 Paulin) that will allow libraries and library systems to engage in cooperative bidding. The legislation, which goes into effect immediately, will allow systems to jointly go out to bid on products or services, rather than as individual entities.  See http://assembly.state.ny.us/leg/?default_fld=&bn=S03903&Summary=Y&Text=Y for the full text of the legislation.

For the first time in Nylink’s 37 year history, we are moving to a phone menu system. When you call Nylink, you will be prompted to enter the last name of the person to whom you wish to speak. Or you can use our direct extensions, which are listed below, along with their title or areas of specialization. Not sure who can help? No problem. Please contact Ellen Barnum, xt 3040.

What’s new at Project Muse? Plenty. In addition to SUSHI support (see the statistics page for more details), Project Muse has added 14 new titles for 2010, with many more planned for next year.
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Four New York libraries have been chosen to participate in the Value, Outcomes, and Return on Investment study (“Lib-Value”), conducted under sponsorship of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), and headed by Principal Investigator Carol Tenopir and New York state coordinator Bruce Kingma. Lib-Value is the third phase of two previous studies which considered the return on investment (ROI) of academic library electronic collections in terms of grants income (Luther 2008; Tenopir et al. 2010). Lib-Value extends this line of research by looking not only at ROI, but also more broadly at the library’s value, particularly as evident in three functional areas: research, teaching and learning, and professional and social outcomes.

• Baruch College (CUNY)
• Brooklyn College (CUNY)
• SUNY University at Buffalo
• SUNY Buffalo State College

These four libraries were chosen to collaborate with and expand the Lib-Value  team. Their participation is being coordinated through Nylink, in partnership with NYSHEI, and Bruce Kingma of Syracuse University.

OCLC has released CONTENTdm 5.4, the latest version of the popular CONTENTdm Digital Collection Management Software that includes the new CONTENTdm Flex Loader along with other enhancements.

Designed to complement the CONTENTdm Project Client, Flex Loader is a new Windows desktop application. It enables users to efficiently batch import large quantities of XML data in the METS/ALTO newspaper format, or the METS/ALTO monograph and eBook format, to their CONTENTdm collections. XML file formats supported by Flex Loader include the NDNP (National Digital Newspaper Program) and CCS (Content Conversion Specialists) docWorks newspaper and monograph. Compound object-level metadata and page-level metadata mapping is supported, along with support for newspaper article segmentation.

Other highlights of CONTENTdm 5.4 include new options for editing metadata for compound objects. All pages of a compound object can now be viewed and edited in a spreadsheet, giving users improved efficiency when editing compound objects.

Additionally, the Upload Manager has been improved to allow users more control of the upload process. As the upload queue is being processed, progress indicators show detailed progress of each item and the entire queue. Users also have the option to cancel the upload—either a single item or all items—and return items to the project workspace. Status of the upload persists across sessions of the Project Client, letting users continue to work while uploads progress in the background.

For those CONTENTdm users with very large digital collections, CONTENTdm 5.4 includes a new version of the FIND search engine, used by CONTENTdm (and WorldCat.org) for indexing and searching. The new version supports long-term scalability for sites with rapidly growing full-text collections by supporting automatic index partitioning along with tools for configuration and monitoring. This integrated feature will support scalability for growing collections now and in the future.

The 5.4 release, including the new Flex Loader, is available to current CONTENTdm licensees at no additional charge.

Donna Dixon (Director of the Member Programs Team) will be transferring from Nylink to SUNY Press (http://www.sunypress.edu) where she will be Co-Director along with James Peltz, who is currently an executive acquisitions editor at the Press.
This new role will be a great opportunity for Donna to broaden her experience to include the university press arena. At the same time, she will bring a wealth of knowledge regarding publishers and information providers in her dealings with such organizations while at Nylink. Her work at SUNY Press will include contract and financial management duties as well as other tasks as required.
We will miss Donna’s experience and positive approach to challenging issues. While she will be moving into this new role immediately, she will be “just across the hall” now that SUNY Press is relocated to Corporate Woods. We wish her the very best and expect to stay in touch on a regular basis.

Oxford University Press is pleased to announce that the latest update to Grove Art Online is now available at www.oxfordartonline.com.

The Grove Encyclopedia of American Art
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Luke Williams, Nylink’s Program Development Team Leader, has found a new position within the New York State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance (OTDA) as an Information Technology Specialist (2). He will be working with large mainframe applications. His last day at Nylink will be July 19, 2010. Luke has made invaluable contributions to Nylink and will undoubtedly be a tremendous asset to ODTA.

OCLC and Atlas Systems continue to provide ongoing enhancements to the OCLC ILLiad Resource Sharing Management software to insure that ILLiad meets the changing needs of libraries. The latest version of ILLiad software is version 8. Using the latest development platforms and tools, the ILLiad version 8 client can perform faster and more efficiently than previous versions.
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