December 2004 -- The Sustainability Standing Committee and Whiteboard Report are offering a new series entitled Sustainability Vignettes beginning with a piece by Jack Bradbury, Cornell University Lab of Ornithology, about the Macaulay Library's balanced sustainability built on diversified income streams.

The series will highlight sustainability strategies being implemented by pathways, collections and services projects. Descriptions of successful strategies along with their case histories are being developed to benefit the overall NSDL program by offering projects a series of successful models to refer to in developing their own sustainability plans. The Committee welcomes submissions of vignettes from all NSDL projects.

Submission Guidelines: Each vignette should be between 1000 and 2000 words, although a longer length is acceptable, and address the following points:

--The scope of your NSDL project (including descriptions of, and time frames for development of pre-existing and/or associated infrastructure elements);

--Your NSDL project's strategies to sustain itself beyond the period of NSF funding; and,

--Your vision of how your NSDL project will contribute to the long-term sustainability of the NSDL program.

To accompany the vignette, please prepare an abstract (
Related Link: http://nsdl.comm.nsdl.org

December 2004 --

By Jack Bradbury, Director http://nsdl.org/community/project_profile.php The Macaulay Library (http://www.birds.cornell.edu/MacaulayLibrary/) is a part of the Cornell University Lab of Ornithology. The Library houses and manages the world?s largest archive of animal sound recordings and a growing archive of animal behavior videos. Cornell Lab of Ornithology founder, Professor Arthur Allen, initiated the collection in the 1930?s and guided its growth until his death in 1964. Allen included education and outreach in Lab of Ornithology programs from the start. He was known nationwide for his weekly radio show and National Geographic articles promoting avian biology, and locally for his Saturday morning field trips open to any resident of the area.

Read the entire story of how The Macaulay Library's 3.1M budget is balanced in the full "Sustainability Vignette" at http://nsdl.org/community/project_profile.php.
Related Link: http://nsdl.org/community/project_profile.php

December 2004 -- The recent NSDL Annual Meeting, held in Chicago November 14-17, offered the NSDL community a variety of venues for sharing information about projects, networking with colleagues, and contributing to work on common issues. The majority of the agenda for the three and half day meeting centered on concurrent sessions addressing a range of technical, social, and operational issues. The 2004 meeting featured Workshop, Panel, and Special Interest Group (SIGs) sessions, as well as Crit Labs, a format new to NSDL meetings. 

Session topics were selected via a proposal submission process open to the entire NSDL community. From 62 submitted proposals, the Annual Meeting Planning Committee and a Program Subcommittee of community volunteers selected and combined proposals to create the final schedule of 41 concurrent sessions (http://nsdl.comm.nsdl.org/meeting/schedules/schedule.php). 

At the conclusion of each session, attendees were given the opportunity to provide feedback about both the specific session and its format via a survey form. Individual session surveys are being compiled for distribution to presenters in the upcoming weeks. Survey results suggest the following preferences regarding specific formats and the relative success of sessions in general:

Crit Labs ? Crit lab participants expressed that this format provided a useful opportunity for both presenters and audience members. Most respondents thought that longer sessions would be useful, as well as more computers and/or wireless internet access. Direct practical applications of Crit Lab discussions was cited multiple times as the best thing about this session format. Several presenters mentioned they would have benefited from better guidelines about structuring their Crit Lab. As a result, the Planning Committee will be debriefing with all Crit Lab presenters to help improve the experience for future meetings.

Panels ? While the majority of survey respondents felt the panel they attended provided valuable information, the sessions frequently did not meet the expectations of the attendees regarding the panel?s structure. Expectations ranged from a ?talk show? format that facilitates a series of questions from the audience directly to the panelists, to a debate style that would have the panelists discussing a topic among themselves, to comments from the panelists followed by full audience discussion. Panels at the 2004 meeting had a mix of these structures. Appreciation was shown for panels that allowed significant time for audience discussion as well as for those that focused primarily on the panelists to share a range of viewpoints on a given topic. The Planning Committee will discuss how best to manage panel style expectations with presenters and attendees for next year?s meeting. 

Special Interest Groups (SIGs) ? SIG discussions were highly rated by participants as being useful, interactive, and relevant to their own work. Many respondents expressed an interest in creating venues for continuing SIG conversations beyond the annual meeting. Brown Bag SIGs, offered for the first time during lunch, were considered just as valuable in content, however the short amount of time available to purchase a lunch and return for the start of a Brown Bag was problematic.

Workshops ? Similar to community reactions to panel presentations, Workshops were generally rated as interesting and valuable sessions that did not quite meet expectations for session structure. Attendees requested more time for hands-on interaction with tools and techniques, and more in-depth discussion of how to apply specific approaches and solutions to their own projects. These recommendations will inform future planning.

PDF versions of presentations and handouts from concurrent sessions are now available at the NSDL Annual Meeting website (http://nsdl.comm.nsdl.org/meeting/schedules/schedule.php). Sessions for which presentations are available are indicated with an asterisk in the Meeting Schedule. Related documents can be accessed via the abstract and description page for each session. PDF versions of posters are also available via the Poster Session page (http://nsdl.comm.nsdl.org/meeting/search/posterSearch.php) by clicking on "View All Posters' Info" at the top of the page, or via the "2004 Annual Meeting Attendees" link on the Annual Meeting homepage (http://nsdl.comm.nsdl.org) which also provides institutional and project affiliations for all session presenters and other attendees.

End of meeting survey results will be presented in Part 3 of the Annual Meeting Report, to appear in the mid-January issue of the Whiteboard Report. Please contact Susan Van Gundy (vangundy@ucar.edu) with questions about the Annual Meeting. --Susan Van Gundy

Related Link: http://nsdl.comm.nsdl.org

December 2004 -- At its teleconference on Tuesday, December 14, the NSDL Policy Committee voted to accept four policy changes discussed at the Annual Meeting with one modification. Adopted as new policy were the Guidelines for Standing Committee Activities and the set of minimal Guidelines on Collection Development. In addition, the Metadata Policy is amended to define Authorized Service Providers (ASP) to include a requirement to notify collections whenever a new ASP is added with an offer for them to withdraw items. And finally, the Working Structure now establishes the number of Policy Committee members at nine (instead of eleven). Based on the last item, the PC Nominating Committee will select three new candidates for the Policy Committee from the list of nominees and present the slate for confirmation by the Assembly in January.

Related Link: http://nsdl.comm.nsdl.org

December 2004 -- The NSF "selects NSDL selectors" by providing support for a community of NSDL projects ensuring that quality review in the NSDL is distributed among trusted resource providers. Ideally differentiation along a spectrum of quality will balance assertions about resources from trusted providers with additional assertions about the nature of things in the library. Strategies for determining quality are part of an evolving NSDL Collections Development Policy. A Quality Review Procedure for NSDL is currently being developed by John Saylor, Director of Collections Development and will be available for community review in early 2005.

Related Link: http://nsdl.comm.nsdl.org

December 2004 -- The Joint Conference on Digital Libraries (http://www.jcdl2005.org/) to be held June 7-11 in Denver, is a major international forum focusing on digital libraries and associated technical, practical, and social issues. In 2005 NSDL joins co-hosts the Digital Library for Earth System Education Program Center (http://www.dlese.org), and the Department of Computer Science and Institute of Cognitive Sciences at the University of Colorado (http://www.colorado.edu/) in enabling the conference to reach a diverse community of researchers and practitioners working in the many disciplines that are invested in digital libraries.

The theme of JCDL 2005 highlights the powerful role of digital libraries as cyberinfrastructure. This cyberinfrastructure has the potential to engender the creation of new tools, research methodologies, and processes that will enable scientists and learners to investigate the natural world, the social world, and the human-built environment in new and previously unimaginable ways. As global interests in computation, information management, networking, and intelligent sensing converge, the conduct of research and education will be transformed.

Important dates:
--January 27, 2005: Full articles, panel, and tutorial proposals due
--February 10, 2005: Short articles, posters, demonstrations, and proposals for workshops due
--April 5, 2005: Revision deadline for accepted articles and abstracts

For more information please visit http://www.jcdl2005.org/papersub.html.

Related Link: http://www.jcdl2005.org/

December 2004 -- The 2004 NSDL Annual Report Highlighting Successful Strategies for Growth illustrates how NSDL is impacting educational practice. 2004 Annual Meeting themes and topics are reflected in the emerging NSDL narrative that comprises this year?s annual report available for download by clicking http://nsdl.org/about/. Please contact Maureen Donovan (mdonovan@ucar.edu) if you would like to receive printed copies to redistribute.

Related Link: http://nsdl.comm.nsdl.org

December 2004 -- A collaboratory on OpenCourse.org has been established by Dr. Robert Stephenson, The Harvey Project, "Open Course Physiology on the Web"(http://harveyproject.org/), Wayne State University, for sharing photos and presentations from last month's NSDL Annual Meeting. Images of some presentations and several posters can be found at http://opencourse.org/Collaboratories/all-projects200. Most posters are best read at the largest size. Please add your own photos, presentations, and comments.

Related Link: http://nsdl.comm.nsdl.org

http://www.ccmr.cornell.edu/education/ret

December 2004 -- The Cornell Center for Materials Research, with support from the NSF, is currently taking applications for its 2005 Research Experience for Teachers program (June 27 - August 5, 2005) at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. This six-week summer program provides middle and high school science teachers with the opportunity to work with researchers and equipment at the cutting edge of materials innovation and discovery.

Selected teachers will earn a $4,095 stipend plus free housing, or local travel expenses. Professional development hours are available. Applications are due February 25, 2005. Please contact Alexa Sabanegh at 607-255-9547; fax 607-255-3957; or email outreach@ccmr.cornell.edu.

Related Link: http://www.ccmr.cornell.edu/education/ret

http://scholar.google.com/

December 2004 -- "Stand on the Shoulders of Giants."

Related Link: http://scholar.google.com/

http://www.resourceshelf.com/2004/11/wow-its-google-scholar.html

December 2004 -- "In a nutshell, Google has built an algorithm that makes a calculated guess at *what it thinks* is a scholarly content mined from the OPEN WEB, and then makes it accessible via the Google Scholar interface. Precisely what makes something "scholarly" enough to be included in Google Scholar, Google will not say."

Related Link: http://www.resourceshelf.com/2004/11/wow-its-google-scholar.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/14/technology/14google.html

December 2004 -- "....Each agreement with a library is slightly different. Google plans to digitize nearly all the eight million books in Stanford's collection and the seven million at Michigan. The Harvard project will initially be limited to only about 40,000 volumes. The scanning at Bodleian Library at Oxford will be limited to an unspecified number of books published before 1900, while the New York Public Library project will involve fragile material not under copyright that library officials said would be of interest primarily to scholars."

Related Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/14/technology/14google.html

http://www.futureofthebook.org

December 2004 -- The Education area of the new web site describes and provides examples of experimental work in K-12 and higher education.

The material there now is related to projects that use TK3 (http://nightkitchen.com/) authoring software. Examples of other work that should be included are encouraged. Contact Bob Stein at .
The website also announces the first Born Digital contest. Born Digital is a series of mini-competitions that will offer cash awards for the best solutions to specific problems. The first contest asks people to rethink the concept of an illustration on a page in a world where illustrations needn't be static.
Related Link: http://www.futureofthebook.org

http://learn.nsdl.org

December 2004 --NSDL and its component collections are the primary focus of a new magazine whose mission is to explore and publicize those combinations of content, imagination, and hard work that produce great digital learning environments. Learn NSDL is also a container for reusable and redistributable content.

Comments at the annual conference panel, "Electronic News and Features Publishing Models," conversations at the "Introducing Learn NSDL magazine" poster, and initial results from the Learn NSDL Reader Survey (http://learn.nsdl.org) have been positive. Reader Survey results are incomplete, but early respondents gave question three, "How important do you think a magazine like this is to the future of NSDL as an organization?," a better than 50% ranking.

Related Link: http://learn.nsdl.org

http://www.improb.com/ig/ig-pastwinners.html

December 2004 -- The Ig Nobel Prizes are intended to celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative-- and spur people's interest in science, medicine, and technology. Every Ig Nobel Prize winner has done something that first makes people LAUGH, then makes them THINK.

Related Link: http://www.improb.com/ig/ig-pastwinners.html