University of California vs. Nature Publishing Group

Have you heard about the confrontation between Nature Publishing Group and the University of California faculty and library? If not, or if you want more information, read on! In short, The Nature Publishing Group (NPG) (which publishes Nature along with many other journals) wanted to renegotiate its contract with the University of California system, with a price increase amounting to about 400% (or over one million dollars). The University not only resisted such an increase, but some faculty there have organized a boycott of Nature journals (PDF): no submitting papers, no peer review, no editorial boards, and so on. In other words, withholding their mostly-free labor in the face of this price increase. Since then, NPG has responded and UC/California Digital Library has responded to that response (PDF). (Text borrowed from Steve Lawson, with his permission.) This is a topic that touches on a lot of different aspects of scholarly communication — faculty as authors, the peer review process, journal prices… I welcome discussion, and will post updates as they come. More reading on the subject: Bidwell, Allie. 14 June 2010. UC Librarians Urge Professors To Boycott Publishing Company. The Daily Californian. http://www.dailycal.org/article/109651/uc_librarians_urge_professors_to_boycott_publishin Howard, Jennifer. 8 June 2010. U. of California Tries Just Saying No to Rising Journal Costs. Chronicle of Higher Education. http://0-chronicle.com.ilsprod.lib.neu.edu/article/U-of-California-Tries-Just/65823/ Oder, Norman. 24 June 2010. UC Libraries, Nature Publishing Group in Heated Dispute Over Pricing; Boycott Possible. Library Journal. http://www.libraryjournal.com/lj/home/885271-264/uc_libraries_nature_publishing_group.html.csp Smith, Richard. 10 June 2010. University of California takes on Nature Publishing Group. BMJ Group Blogs. http://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2010/06/10/richard-smith-university-of-california-takes-on-nature-publishing-group/

Construction begins for a new Alumni Reading Room

Beginning July 23rd, the first floor of Snell Library will undergo construction to create an Alumni Reading Room. This room has been made possible by a generous gift from Dr. and Mrs. Eugene M. Reppucci, Jr., in honor of Dr. Reppucci’s late mother, Anna Reppucci. The room will open this fall. It will be situated to the right of the Library main entrance, facing Snell Engineering. The primary purpose of the room is to provide a welcoming space for Northeastern alumni to relax, read, use their laptops, conduct research, and meet while on campus. Graduate students who have received their baccalaureates from Northeastern are also welcome to use the space.  Additionally, the Library is pleased to offer the room to current students who would like to schedule a Student Group meeting or event. Students can book the room through the Office of Student Affairs. Study tables and seating previously located in the Reading Room space are being redeployed to other areas of the Library. “We are delighted to offer alumni and student groups what promises to be a beautiful new space. At the same time, we continue to provide students the same amount of seating during the day and additional two floors of seating in the late and early hours, with the advent of all floor 24 hour access that begins July 5,” said Lesley Milner, Associate Dean, User Services. For updates, please see Snell Library’s blog Snell Snippets at https://librarynews.northeastern.edu.

Announcing All Floor 24/7

Students who have experienced frustration over a lack of time or places to study need fear no more. We are pleased to announce that beginning the evening of July 5th, Snell Library will be open twenty-four hours a day while classes are in session for current students, faculty and staff. For over a year, as a direct result of student demand, the first floor of the Library has been open 24×7. This access has proved a huge success with students. Based on this success, by expanding 24×7 access to all floors, the Library will better serve students who need to stay up late studying and who can also access a wider variety of resources than those available on the first floor. Associate Dean for User Services, Lesley Milner said, “The Library has worked closely with student government, student employees at Snell Library, and frequent library users, to get their input to create optimal library hours and study space, for which there is always demand. For students, the resounding response was anytime, day and night, and as much space as possible.  Dean of Libraries, Will Wakeling shared, “We want to give students what they need to succeed in their academic careers— and of course we are delighted that students want 24 hour access to the Snell library building, which complements our suite of online library research tools and resources.” For security purposes students, faculty, and staff are required to present and carry with them a valid Northeastern ID at all times. The public and alumni are welcome to use the Library during previously regularly scheduled hours. Funding for All Floor 24×7 has been provided by the Office of the Provost. See http://www.lib.neu.edu for more information about hours and usage of Snell Library. For questions about this change please contact Lesley Milner at l.milner@neu.edu. A new era has dawned.

Alumni space in Snell Library

Do you miss your alma mater yet, alums? If you do, we’ve got a treat for you. Beginning June 25th, the first floor of Snell Library will undergo construction to create an Alumni Reading Room. This room has been made possible by a generous gift from Dr. and Mrs. Eugene M. Reppucci, Jr., in honor of Dr. Reppucci’s late mother, Anna Reppucci. The room will open this fall. It will be situated to the right of the Library main entrance, facing Snell Engineering. The primary purpose of the room is to provide a welcoming space for Northeastern alumni to relax, read, use their laptops, conduct research, and meet while on campus. Graduate students who have received their baccalaureates from Northeastern are also welcome to use the space. Additionally, the Library is pleased to offer the room to current students who would like to schedule a Student Group meeting or event. Students can book the room through the Office of Student Affairs. Study tables and seating previously located in the Reading Room space are being redeployed to other areas of the Library. Lesley Milner, Associate Dean of user services commented; “We are delighted to offer alumni and student groups what promises to be a beautiful new space.” It must be understood that this room is first and foremost, for alumni, and their activities take precedence over student activities. Student group meetings may be overridden by alumni events. For more questions, please contact Maria Carpenter at m.carpenter@neu.edu. Further updates can be added to this post in the form of comments. -Damon Griffin

To Naxos and Beyond

  (Above: Johann Sebastian Bach, his printed Naxos subscription in hand) Note: This is the definitive version of the Naxos post, with full instructions. Are you a fan of Bach? Handel? Debussy? You should check out Naxos, one of our many Alumni Resources at Snell. It is a music library  tailored towards fans of Classical Music.  If you go to the Naxos website (www.naxosmusiclibrary.com) you can find such a wide array of composers and songs (over 615,000 songs), that you might feel overwhelmed, but there is no need to worry; Naxos organizes itself in to categories of Composers, Genres and a search engine for specific song titles. Although Naxos is, ostensibly, a Classical Music  site,  the site is now expanding to other genres. An impressive Jazz collection has been established, categrorized under both “Contemporary Jazz” and “Jazz Greats.”  There is a new application Naxos has recently started; now you can upload music on to your iPhone, iPad or iTouch. First you must register with Naxos, then you may begin streaming playlists on to your phone. You can create your own playlists. Students (users) have the ability to create a student playlist account and build their own, private playlists. To do this, they need to access the NML as usual, click on the Playlist tab at the top of the page, then click “Sign-up.”To register for Naxos, you must vist http://0-neu.naxosmusiclibrary.com.ilsprod.lib.neu.edu/  (if you are off-campus, use myNEU credentials to log in). Click on the Playlist tab, then click “Sign Up.” (If nothing happens the first time you click, click again).  The user will be asked to enter his/her name, email address, and to create a password. Once (s)he has created a student playlist account, (s)he will be able to login to the account and build an unlimited number of playlists from any piece within the Naxos Music Library. (Playlists are limited to 60 tracks or 4 hours–whichever comes first–for loading and streaming optimization.) The same login will be used for both the student playlist account AND the iPhone app. While the NML app version 2.0 allows users to search and stream as if logged in on their computer, building and editing playlists must still be done on a computer. You must have iTunes version 9 to use this app. You can download the iPhone app by visiting http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/nml/id338059159?mt=8.  For now, playlists may only be created online, rather than on one’s phone. Naxos may change this in later editions of the iPhone app.  Northeastern playlists will be created in the near future, which all Naxos users of the NU community will be able to view.   Naxos can be found on the Alumni Resources page.  For technical assistance with Naxos please contact: NMLHelp@Naxosusa.com. (Special thanks to Naxos Customer Relations representative Anne Benson for providing crucial information for this post.)