…you will want to read this article describing some recent changes. These include information about indexing the journal content of Science Direct, moves to digitize journal content from various sources, and advice to search Google Books for journal content as well.
ALA-APA Salary Survey: Average MLS Salary UprnrnThe American Library Association-Allied Professional Association’s (ALA-APA) latest survey finds that the average salary for librarians with ALA-accredited master’s degrees increased 2.8 percent from 2006, up $1550 to $57,800, while the median MLS salary was $53,000. Those findings and more are available in two recently released surveys containing data from more than 800 public and academic libraries: “ALA-APA Salary Survey: Librarian Public and Academic” and “ALA-APA Salary Survey: Non-MLSPublic and Academic.”rnrnThe surveys show aggregated data from more than 7500 MLS librarians and almost 20,000 non-MLS individual salaries at the state and regional levels. For the first time, the 2006 surveys included salary data for non-MLS staff, including 62 non-MLS positions in libraries. Non-MLS positions include library-specific jobs such as technical assistants and clerks by functional area, bookmobile drivers, collection development managers, and non-library specific positions, such as senior accountants, administrative assistants, proposal writers, human resources managers, and information technology managers. Librarian positions include the full range of positions: directors/deans, associate/assistant directors, department heads, managers of support staff, librarians who do not supervise, and beginning librarians.rnrnThe survey gives national-level mean and quartile data and coinciding printed reports include analyses of salary trends and an extensive appendix of other sources of compensation data within and outside of the library profession. The surveys are available in two ways: for subscribers to the ALA-APA Library Salary Database or in print from the ALA online store. For more salary info, also check out Library Journal’s own starting salary survey.
A sociologist in Germany was arrested because he used words in his writing that were the same as language used by a terrorist group…really rare words like “gentrification” and “inequality” that were “not to be explained through a coincidence.” Not only that, but his access to a library meant that he was “intellectually in a position to compile the sophisticated texts of the ‘militante gruppe’.” The Guardian article is here.
From Library Journal http://www.libraryjournal.com/info/CA6468839.html?nid=2673#news1 rnrnThe Yale University Library has cancelled its institutional support of pioneering commercial open access (OA) publisher BioMed Central (BMC), citing skyrocketing costs. In an announcement posted the Cushing/Whitney Medical and Kline Science Libraries blog, Yale librarians said the BMC “experiment in Open Access publishing has proved unsustainable.” Yale’s support ended with articles in submission to BMC as of July 27.
Well probably not an ode, but certainly an interesting discussion of the merits of print journals, particularly for some fields. Written by Karen Schneider (diva of Librarians’ Index to the Internet) she suggests faculty create their own mini-libraries if their librarians won’t keep the journals… also some interesting comments about journals as a mechanism of community.
Her commentary is on the National Book Critics Circle board blog.
Saw this entry on the Language Log blog. The author has learned one of his articles has been purchased by a publisher to put in an book.
Of course, as a scholarly writer who signed away his secondary publishing rights, he won’t see a penny of the £646 Routledge paid Elsevier for the article.
I guess it’s fair enough that Taylor & Francis (who own Routledge) paid Elsevier (who own Speech Communication) rather than paying us, since Elsevier never paid us anything either, following the normal political economy of the scientific publishing industry: academics do the research, writing and editing, funded by universities and government research grants, and the publishing conglomerates hold the copyrights and collect the money. (That’s in order to reward creativity and to ensure that the authors will remain motivated to dream up new things in the future, you understand.)
A few days later, he was notified that as author of one of the chapters, he could buy the 6 volume set at only $837 - a 40% discount!