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.

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.

SUNYLA 2010 is next week; registration is closed, but we hope to see you there. Lynne Graziadei will be representing Nylink at the SUNY Brockport meeting. While Nylink won’t have a traditional exhibit, we will have a tabletop display of some photos from our 37-year history of working with the libraries of SUNY. We’ll also have a guestbook out and would love to have a few of your memories of working with us over the years.

In April Nylink staffers Meredith Case, Deidre Dowling, and Jim Mancuso conducted three focus groups on the topic of Integrated Library Systems. The events, which took place in Colonie, Liverpool and Clarence, were attended by librarians from a variety of institutions who offered their thoughts, ideas and experiences with ILSs. Discussions surrounded questions such as, “What would you include in your dream ILS?” and “What do you expect from a good ILS vendor?” Trends noted included having searching like Google, the desire for ILS support techs to really “know” libraries, and for web-based clients. The conversations were honest, open, and thoughtful. And needless to say very informative! We want to thank all the librarians who participated and made each focus group flow so well. We are currently analyzing the information and expect a report to be generated by the end of May 2010.

DUBLIN, Ohio, April 20, 2010—James G. Neal, Vice President for Information Services and University Librarian at Columbia University, has been elected to the OCLC Board of Trustees.

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• Lisa Chow, Librarian, Central Library, Society, Sciences and Technology Division, Brooklyn Public Library, for bringing health reference services to Brooklyn’s diverse communities. Chow has launched a Book-a-Librarian service, which she describes as a “user-centered reference model where patrons can meet one-on-one with librarians for research assistance.”
• Sandra Sajonas, Young Adult Literacy Librarian Brooklyn Public Library, who works as part of a pilot program funded by Brooklyn’s Center for Economic Opportunity to improve the literacy and job readiness of the city’s quarter-million “disconnected youth”—those 17- to 24-year-olds who are neither in school nor working and struggle to read. Sajonas also develops GED readiness programs and workshops to help them set educational and employment goals.
• David Lindahl, Software Development Director, River Campus Libraries; Co-Executive Director, eXtensible Catalog Organization, University of Rochester, River Campus Libraries, for applying an ethnography-based approach to product development that relies on “in-context observation of work and codesign with end users.”
• Rebekkah Smith Aldrich, Coordinator for Library Growth & Sustainability, Mid-Hudson Library System (Poughkeepsie), who served as the coordinator of member information for the 66 libraries in MHLS for a decade, and who has become the first librarian to become certified as a Sustainable Building Advisor, also becoming a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)–Accredited Professional.

For their complete profiles, visit http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6535115.html

The deadline for nominations for 2010 Coming Up Taller Awards is January 29.  This award focuses on program excellence in after school, out of school, and summer arts and humanities programs for underserved children and youth.  Winners receive $10,000 for their efforts in creating dynamic programs that positively impact program participants.

More info below:

Washington, DC-The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) invites nominations for the 2010 Coming Up Taller awards, which honor excellence in afterschool, out-of-school, and summer arts and humanities programs for underserved children and youth. Coming Up Taller is an initiative of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities
(PCAH) in partnership with IMLS, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). IMLS and its partners encourage programs initiated by museums, libraries, performing arts organizations, universities, colleges, arts centers, community service organizations, schools, businesses, and eligible government entities to participate. Click here for the nomination form:
http://www.pcah.gov/cut/2010CUTNominationApplication.pdf

Each year, the Coming Up Taller awards recognize and reward exceptional programs that cultivate character development and life skills in young people, in addition to presenting high-quality arts and humanities learning opportunities. Award recipients receive $10,000 each, an individualized plaque, and an invitation to attend the annual Coming Up Taller Leadership Enhancement Conference.

In 2008, Nylink entered into some conversations with librarians at SUNY about an open-source electronic resource management system called CUFTS, developed by Simon Fraser University. The system appeared to have tremendous potential and it was agreed that Nylink should develop a service based on the CUFTS platform. Nylink Program Development Team Leader Luke Williams and Senior Product Strategist Lauren Pinsley were assigned to this project, and have worked very hard over the past year to create and launch the service, with the goal of developing a comprehensive solution, for a single price that is the same for every library. After building an instance of the system on our own servers, developing the service and inputting our own electronic serials and database information and coming up with a name, it was determined that the best way to continue to develop and enhance the service was with a live pilot. The test group was five libraries. For the full text of the Q & A interview, please see p.5 of the most recent Nylink Connection (PDF).

Oxford University Press congratulates Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson, who both won the Nobel Prize in Economic Science for their work demonstrating that community institutions often find ways to mutually resolve problems that arise from free-market competition. Ostrom is the first woman ever to win the prize. Works by both of these Nobel Laureates are published by OUP and are also available through Oxford Scholarship Online and Oxford Handbooks Online.

Elinor Ostrom, a professor of political science at Indiana University, was cited "for her analysis of economics governance, especially the commons." Her work shows that communities often manage common property better on their own, without the regulation of central authorities.

Oliver E. Williamson, a professor in the graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley, was cited "for his analysis of economic governance, especially the boundaries of the firm." His work examines why large corporations arise, and found that "when market competition is limited, firms are better suited for conflict resolution than markets."

The fact that the Prize was given to two social scientists reflects recent changes in economic thought. "It is part of the merging of the Social Sciences," Robert Shiller, an economist at Yale, said. "Economics has been too isolated and these awards today are a sign of the greater enlightenment going around. We were too stuck on efficient markets and it was derailing our thinking."

According to the committee, Professors Ostrom and Williamson were honored because "both scholars have greatly enhanced our understanding of non-market institutions." Professor Shiller elaborates on the decision by explaining that "basically there is a common understanding that develops even among competitors when they are dealing with each other. When people make business contact, even competitors, they can’t anticipate everything, so an element of trust comes in," and that is what the Nobel committee recognized in citing the two.

Below is a full OUP bibliography for both, with links to OSO and OHO when applicable:

Elinor Ostrom
Co-author of The Samaritan’s Dilemma: The Political Economy of Development Aid (OUP, 2005) (http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/oso/public/content/economicsfinance/9780199278855/toc.html)

Editor of Linking the Formal and Informal Economy: Concepts and Policies (OUP, 2007) (http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/oso/public/content/economicsfinance/9780199204762/toc.html)

Author of "Collective Action Theory" in The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Politics (OUP, 2007)
(http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/oso/public/content/oho_politics/9780199566020/oxfordhb-9780199566020-chapter-8.html)

Oliver Williamson
Author of The Mechanisms of Governance (OUP, 1999)

Author of The Nature of the Firm: Origins, Evolution, and Development (OUP, 1993)

Author of Organization Theory: From Chester Barnard to the Present and Beyond, 2nd Edition (OUP, 1995)

Author of "Economic Institutions and Development: A View from the Bottom" from A Not-so-dismal Science – A Broader View of Economies and Societies (OUP, 2000) (http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/oso/public/content/economicsfinance/9780198294900/toc.html)

Author of "Transaction Cost Economics and Organization Theory&quot: from Technology, Organization, and Competitiveness – Perspectives on Industrial and Corporate Change (OUP, 1998) (http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/oso/private/content/economicsfinance/9780198290964/p013.html)

Congratulations to these OUP authors!
Nylink offers Oxford Scholarship Online and Oxford Handbooks Online – please contact services[at]nylink.org for details, or see the Oxford University Press page at nylink.org

Caryl Ward, Binghamton University Libraries, and Boaz Nadav-Manes, Cornell University Library (both universities’ libraries are Nylink members) agreed to repeat their presentations from the WorldCat Selection User Group Meeting Presentations so that OCLC could record them to post to the OCLC Web site. The recordings are now available at http://www.oclc.org/selection/overview/websessions.htm.
For more information about WorldCat Selection, please contact OCLC’s Support department by phone at 1-800-848-5800 and follow the prompts (menu selections 1-4-2-1 for FirstSearch and WorldCat.org), or by e-mail at support@oclc.org.