The ARL has published a book profiling selected rare and special collections in major research libraries of North America, Celebrating Research: Rare and Special Collections from the Membership of the Association of Research Libraries. The full text of the book is available online (free) at: CelebratingResearch.org.

According to the CelebratingResearch.org web site the “compendium is a sampling of the abundance and variety of collections available for use.” Celebrating Research includes 118 collection profiles, each from a different ARL member library which includes several NYS institutions and Nylink members like Columbia University, Cornell University, New York Public Library, New York University, New York State Library, University at Albany, University at Buffalo, University of Rochester, Syracuse University, Stony Brook University. Each profile is illustrated with color photographs and tells a story of a single collection, recounting how the resources were acquired and developed. I do hope you take the time to check out the CelebratingResearch.org web site and collection profiles.

Scitopia.org, the free, federated vertical search portal created by 15 leading science and technology societies, removed its beta label on October 19th, marking the official launch of its service. The beta version of scitopia.org, opened in June, allowing users to test the site. During that time, libraries around the world, including Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, have included links to scitopia.org from their web sites so patrons could use the service during its development. Researchers at institutions with subscriptions to the content will be automatically authenticated and will be able to click through to it. Members of partner societies will also be able to access full text, depending upon the association’s membership policies. Pay-per-view options will allow others to purchase as many articles as they choose.

More than three million documents, including peer-reviewed journal content and technical conference papers, spanning 150 years of science and technology can be searched through scitopia.org; which searches bibliographic records in each of their partner‘s electronic libraries, patents from the US Patent and Trademark Office, European Patent Office, and Japan Patent Office and US Government documents on the Department of Energy Information Bridge site. Scitopia.org is powered by Deep Web Technologies’ Explorit Research Accelerator federated search engine. Results are broken down on 3 tabs (society documents, patents, government documents) and the default is to display partial results with an easy click to get complete results. Hope you stop by and Scitopia.org and give it a whirl.

LibraryThing just released Common Knowledge, the innovative, open-data “fielded wiki” they have been talking about for a month on 10/10/07.

Common Knowledge adds fields to every author and work, like:

• Author: Places of residence, Awards and honors, Agent
• Work: Important places, Character names, Publisher’s editor, Description

All-told there are fourteen fields, but according to LibraryThings’ blog “Common Knowledge is less a set of fields than a structure for adding fields to LibraryThing. Adding more fields is almost trivial, and they can be added to anything existing or planned—from tags and subjects, to bookstores and publishers. They can even be added to other Common Knowledge fields, so that, for example, agents and editors can, in the future, sport photos and contact information.* This can lead to, as Chris puts it, “nearly infinite cross-linking of data.”"

Common Knowledge appears to work like a wiki, yet diverges from a standard wiki because each field works like its own independent wiki page, with a separate edit history. Any member of LibraryThing can add information, and any member can edit or revert edits. All fields are global, not personal. If you haven’t done so yet, please checkout LibraryThing and Common Knowledge….just watch out you may get hooked…who knew cataloguing your own books could be so much fun:)

The New York State Program for the Conservation and Preservation of Library Research materials provides $500,000 each year for preserving materials in the collections of libraries, archives, historical societies and similar agencies. There is a strong competition for the $500,000. The grant awards in 2008/09 will be limited to a minimum of $1,500 and a maximum of $30,000.

The Conservation Preservation Discretionary Grant Application for
2008/2009 is now available at www.nysl.nysed.gov/libdev/cp. If you wish to have a copy of the application and guidelines mailed to you, please contact Julie Chiplock at (518) 474-7890. Applications must be received in the New York State Library’s Division of Library Development by 5:00 p.m. on Friday, December 7, 2007. There will be no extension of this deadline.

Questions about the program should be addressed to:

Barbara Lilley
Conservation/Preservation Program Officer New York State Library Room 10B41, Cultural Education Center Albany, NY 12230
(518) 486-4864
blilley@mail.nysed.gov or visit the NYSL website at www.nysl.nysed.gov/libdev/cp.

The 7th Nylink Shared Collection of eBooks closes on October 31st. There are a few spots remaining so to join in this 210 title collection please visit: http://www.nylink.org/reference/netli_share7.cfm

Academic (4 year) up to 2,000 FTE= $2500
Academic (4 year) greater than 2,000 FTE= $4000

Community College up to 2800 FTE=$2500
Community College greater than 2800 FTE= $4000

Public Library is $0.15/ population served
School Library $750/ school building

Special Libraries, please call for pricing!

The Fall Festival of Books is Children’s Literature Connection’s 4th annual greeting/selling/autographing celebration of children’s literature. School and public librarians, educators and the general public are invited to meet authors and illustrators, buy their books and chat as books are autographed. Professionals are encouraged to speak with authors about school visits, and hear about exciting upcoming projects. It’s a great time to think about unique holiday gifts too.

The C.L.C. and the Hudson Valley Community College English Department present:

The Fall Festival of Books

Saturday October 20, 2007

9 a.m. – 12 p.m.

HVCC Bulmer Telecommunications Center

80 Vandenburgh Avenue Troy, NY

This year, for the first time, the authors will have the opportunity to showcase their work via individual presentations. This year we are happy to announce that our authors will include:

Sylvie Kantorovitz (Wickstrom), Matt McElligott, Karen Beil, Kyra Teis, Alexandra Siy, Rose Kent, Eric Luper, Thomas Styles, Marlene Newman, Liza Frenette, Daniel Mahoney, Peter Marino, and Bob Hervey.

In addition, we are pleased to announce a fantastic door prize! Attendees qualify for a free author visit from award winning writer Jennifer Armstrong.

This is a free event, no registration is required. Free parking is available. For directions to HVCC’’s Bulmer Telecommunications Center, go to: https://www.hvcc.edu/campusmap/index.html

This event is sponsored by the CLC and the HVCC English Department.

For more Fall Festival info, Visit: www.childrensliteratureconnection.org

Or e-mail: Janice Toomajian (jwt@nycap.rr.com)or Meg Seinberg-Hughes (megrarian@hotmail.com)

My fellow Nylink Staffers, Deidre Dowling, Cindy Hajeck, Joyce Rambo and I attended The Hollywood Librarian Tri-City Premiere at Guilderland Public Library on Wednesday, October 3rd. We all agreed it was a thought and discussion provoking film that pointed out how passionate about the field librarians are and also how libraries are run as business, yet need to balance that with their mission/purpose.

One of the main messages that I got out of the film was that libraries represent freedom, allowing us to discover ourselves and explore a world of knowledge. To me that can be summarized in the following equation; which I think could be used as a good marketing campaign for libraries to market themselves and justify their existence….then again it could be all those scenes in movies that equate the destruction of a library with the death of society or civilization as we know it.

Libraries = Freedom, Self-discovery and Knowledge = Empowerment. So support your local/public/school/etc. library and empower yourself and your kids.

That’s just my take on the movie, but I do hope you take time out to see The Hollywood Librarian. Many thanks to the GPL for hosting the movie and creating a wonderful and thought provoking night out.

Now through December 31, 2007, NetLibrary will be offering Elseiver titles at a discounted rate. If you bill your NetLibrary purchase through Nylink, you save an additional 5%!

If a library purchases:
100-249 titles, you Save 25%
250-499 titles, you Save 30%
500-1,000 titles, you Save 40%
1,001 and more, you save 50%
Looking to aquire the entire list of Elseiver titles? You can save 60%!

Additionally, NetLibrary has compiled subject collections of Elseiver titles. If you purchase a subject collection you will save 50%!

Subject Collections are available in:
Architecture, Biomedical, Business, Chemistry, Computing, Earth Sciences, Engineering Materials Science, Film / Animation / Theater, Finance, Forensics, Graphics, Math / Physics,
Media Technology, Security, and Tourism.

Remember, when you order your Elseiver titles note on the order form that you want to by billed through Nylink for an additional 5% off!