New Items at www.WorldCat.com Libraries - May 2010

http://worldcat.org/blogs/archives/2010/06/new-items-at-worldcat-librarie-2.htm

The top five items that WorldCat Libraries added in May 2010 are:



1. The Red Pyramid has a reading level of elementary and junior high school. The Red Pyramid was added by 1001 WorldCat libraries.
2. Making Toast: A Family Story, a biography, was added by 955 WorldCat libraries.
3. Castle Waiting, has been added by 869 WorldCat libraries.
4. Crash, the DVD, has been added by 825 WorldCat libraries.
5. Storm Prey, by John Sandford, has been added by 824 WorldCat libraries.


The full list of recent items added by your library last month (May, 2010) appears on the WorldCat Library's profile page. You can find your own local library's profile by searching WorldCat Libraries, if they are a WorldCat library, you can see their recent items. 705 libraries have a new WorldCat recent items list - for a total of 10,942 recent items list for the month of May.

New Items at www.WorldCat.com Libraries - May 2010

A Librarian Takes on Google Books

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/rorycellanjones/2010/06/a_librarian_takes_on_google_bo.html

Rory Cellan-Jones / 09:50 UK time, Monday, 7 June 2010

A Librarian Takes on Google Books

Inside Higher Ed: The E-Book Sector

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/06/08/ebooks

June 8, 2010
E-textbooks might be the most-talked about and least-used learning tools in traditional higher education. Campus libraries and e-reader manufacturers are betting on electronic learning materials to overtake traditional textbooks in the foreseeable future, but very few students at traditional institutions are currently using e-textbooks, according to recent surveys.

Not so in the world of for-profit online education. Online for-profits such as American Public University System and the University of Phoenix have for years strategically steered students toward e-textbooks in an attempt to shave costs and ensure a more reliable delivery method that, in the context of online education, might seem to make more sense. At Kaplan University's law school, digital texts account for around 80 percent of assigned reading. At Capella University, e-textbooks are an available and accepted option in nearly all 1,250 courses. In for-profit higher education, more than any other sector, the traditional book is becoming obsolete.

Phoenix actually mandates that instructors assign digital materials “whenever feasible” -- a strategic turn the company started to take back in 2003, but which has come to fruition more recently, with so many more materials now available in digital format. At this point, roughly 90 percent of Phoenix’s course content is delivered via e-books or other electronic means -- the only exceptions coming in courses such as art history, where copyright issues surrounding digital renderings of images such as paintings remain a hurdle for e-book publishers, says David Bickford, the vice president of academic affairs at Phoenix.



The American Public University System -- which is a private, for-profit university, despite its name -- has also been consciously promoting the use of e-textbooks, resulting in widespread adoption of the new format among students.


Of the company’s 400 fully online courses, about 300 assign e-textbooks as the default delivery method (with exceptions for overseas military personnel, who make up a significant proportion of the institution’s enrollment and tend to have irregular Web access). While the institution allows stateside students the option of buying print books, more than 90 percent of students opt for the e-textbook, says Fred Stielow, dean of libraries.

Those are staggering adoption rates compared to those at nonprofit online programs and on traditional campuses. Among the respondents to a 2009 Campus Computing Project survey of 182 online programs at nonprofit universities, only 9 percent said e-textbooks were “widely used” at their institutions, while nearly half said electronic versions were “rarely used.” Even fewer brick-and-mortar institutions are deploying e-books in lieu of hard copies, with fewer than 5 percent citing e-book deployment as a key IT priority in the short term, according to another Campus Computing Project survey. And according to data from the Student Monitor, e-textbooks accounted for only 2 percent of all textbook sales last fall.


One reason American Public University System students have adopted e-textbooks so enthusiastically might be because of the company’s unusual practice of including course materials such as books in the cost of tuition. Historically, it has bought students their textbooks. Now, it only buys e-textbooks; if students want to keep using print volumes, they have to pay for them out of their own pockets. “Given textbook inflation… it’s the only way we can continue to underwrite the materials cost for our undergrad students,” says Stielow.


For-profit institutions in general are moving toward wider e-textbook use than other sectors of higher education, Stielow says. “I think a great many [for-profits] are certainly trying to move toward this model,” agrees Bickford. And the ones that have appear to be succeeding.


Why is that?
John Bourne, executive director of the Sloan Consortium, which studies online learning, posits that it might be a function of the more centralized administrative structures at for-profit institutions. “For-profits do things like provide lesson plans for instructors, provide you with what you’re supposed to do; they hire all these adjuncts to deliver all these things that have been sculpted by instructional designers,” says Bourne. Being able to dictate to the faculty what text format they should assign to their students probably makes it easier to implement e-textbook adoption across the institution, he says.


It is more difficult to engineer change at such scale at nonprofits, because of their more distributed governance models. At those colleges, faculty control of curricular texts — including mode of delivery — is “sacred,” Bourne says.


Manny Rivera, a spokesman for Phoenix, says that the online giant’s centralized administration does indeed allow it to make sweeping changes without many hang-ups. “The university is set up to be more nimble to confront market forces,” Rivera says. “So we’re able to innovate more quickly.”


The wide adoption of e-textbooks has also allowed the University of Phoenix to reduce the price it pays for licensing rights to e-textbook material from publishers. “In return for predictable revenue stream, the publishers can generally give best-in-class pricing on digital textbooks and material,” says Bickford. That’s a financial windfall for Phoenix, which pays a licensing fee to publishers and then sells access to its students at a mark-up, investing the revenue in "the development of other multimedia resources."


APUS also gets “deep discounts” -- 30 to 35 percent, usually -- for being able to purchase e-textbooks across the board and sparing the publishers from having to convert individual professors, according to Stielow.


Officials at the for-profits also said that using e-textbooks eliminated issues related to online students sending away by mail for hard-copy textbooks. “I can remember in my first decade of employment here, dealing with panicky student phone calls saying, ‘The UPS driver ate my textbook,’ ” Bickford says.


So switching to e-textbooks seems to be a prudent financial and logistical move. But is it a good educational one?


The jury appears to be out on that question. At APUS, Stielow says an internal survey last year revealed that 90 percent of students opted for the free e-textbooks in the courses where they were assigned. But price was evidently a factor in many cases, since about 42 percent of those said they strongly preferred print texts.


At Phoenix and Kaplan University, officials insist that internal research of e-textbook use has revealed that learning outcomes do not suffer as a result of switching from print texts to digital versions, although both declined to share specific data on proprietary grounds.


“Economics are not a primary driver at all,” says Steven Burnett, the vice president for auxiliary business at Kaplan University’s law school, where he says digital materials are assigned by default for about 80 percent of classes. “What’s been driving us in a lot of this is we’re an innovative institution.”


For the latest technology news from Inside Higher Ed, follow Steve Kolowich on Twitter.
— Steve Kolowich

Inside Higher Ed: The E-Book Sector

Publishers Need to Offer Popular E-Books through Libraries

LISNews

June 7, 2010 - 2:07pm — Anonymous Patron (not verified)

http://lisnews.org/publishers_need_offer_popular_ebooks_through_libraries

Publishers Need to Offer Popular E-Books through Libraries

Learning Something From Books, Before Their Texts Even Begin

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/08/nyregion/08bigcity.html?ref=nyregion
By SUSAN DOMINUS - Published: June 7, 2010

Learning Something From Books, Before Their Texts Even Begin

Hearldsun.com - HBCU experts stress importance of passionate campus leadership

By Neil Offen

June 3, 2010

http://www.hearldsun.com/

DURHAM -- The leaders of many of the nation's historically black colleges and universities were gathered Thursday in a large conference room of the Sheraton Imperial Hotel.
But if they wanted to be "transformational leaders," they had better get out of their conference rooms and offices and walk around their campuses, a top African-American academic leader told them.
"Your best tool is walking around your institution," Belle Wheelan, president of the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, told more than 400 academics at a two-day symposium on the future of HBCUs. "You have to get out and find out what's going on. You can't stay in your ivory tower, or whatever color your tower is," she said.

Wheelan, the first American American and first woman to lead the association that accredits Southern institutions of higher education, said leaders of HBCUs must get out and talk to everyone on campus, starting with the custodians. "When you talk to the custodians and tell them how good the lawn looks, they will take better care of the lawn," she said. "They will tell you things because you have shown you care about them."
Being out on the campus is particularly important during difficult economic times, Wheelan emphasized. "You can't go hide in your office when budget cuts come along," she said. "You have to show your staff and your faculty that you care about them, that you're with them."

The symposium, the culminating event of NCCU's year-long centennial celebration, attracted HBCU leaders from across the South. The leaders, Wheelan said, must have a passion for what they do, and most importantly, for their students. "If you're not passionate about students, leave, please," she said.
During the symposium session devoted to leadership, Duke University professor Paula McClain added that it's not just chancellors and presidents of schools who can provide leadership. It also comes from the faculty, she said. Many HBCUs, McClain pointed out, "take their faculty for granted."

But now HBCUs compete for faculty on a national market, and "you can't assume you can hang on to your faculty or recruit quality new members," she said. "You have to be willing to invest in your faculty. Strong faculty governance is not the enemy. They are the partners."

Hearldsun.com - HBCU experts stress importance of passionate campus leadership

Innovative Educators Webinar: Embracing Technology to Promote Exceptional Student Services in Higher Education

Tuesday, July 13th ~ 1:00-2:30pm EDT

$345.00

http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1103462772247&s=111728&e=001cCGgKdFLnLGh7BEKKhWFtNG7hgxUcZc0Al2eORSD5XuT9d4MsZnvNQTR7boODZ0LyVHmOyp2V3y230BQ3_grQwyUOs-HLU6CJK6iPCzFizsgtrL40scAixnNAVdpqtflm6Zmq_POXdsuU6Jo8adWIxUn-pVhWmAh

Webinar Description

This session will offer participants an overview of the online self-services and other technology initiatives that higher education institutions are developing and providing for their students and their families. Explore how technology is shaping students experience with the financial aid and business offices and how administrators can leverage technology to promote student success.


The presenter will discuss various online student self-services and web applications that have proved successful for students to help them manage the business of being a student, including a look into student portals and mobile device initiatives that have been developed to provide personalized information and communications to students. The presenter will provide online views of various University of Minnesota web applications that have been highly successful including Financial Aid Status, a web application for students that has helped to demystified the complex financial aid process and Parent/Guest Access, an online web process allowing students to share information about financial aid status and awards, student grades, holds, enrolled courses, and student financials to their parents or other guests.

Objectives

The participants will learn more about:
• Self-service options that institutions have developed to assist with customer service
• How to leverage technology into seamless self-service Web applications that bring students from "in line" to "online"
• Examples of cutting-edge technology initiatives for student services including student portals and mobile device initiatives

Who Should Attend?

Higher education administrators and staff including student services professionals, financial aid directors, registrars, bursars, business officers, and student financial services staff.


Who is the Speaker?

Julie Selander, Senior Associate Director, One Stop Student Services, University of Minnesota


Julie Selander has worked in higher education administration and finance for over 22 years. Her experience includes student loan servicing operations, tuition payment plan sales and marketing, as well as management positions in student accounts receivable, billing, collections, financial aid, and customer service.

Julie is currently the senior associate director of the One Stop Student Services Office at the University of Minnesota providing seamless and integrated student services in the areas of enrollment, registration, financial aid, billing and student accounts receivable. Twenty-seven One Stop Counselors across three campus locations provide service via phone, e-mail, and in-person for over 51,000 students on the Twin Cities campus.


Julie presents frequently on various topics related to higher education student services and has written several articles for publication, including NACUBO's Student Centered Financial Services: Innovations That Succeed. She serves as a board member for Minnesota's College Goal Sunday initiative and is a founding member and on the board of directors for the Institute for Student Services Professionals. She has her undergraduate and master's degree from the University of Minnesota and is currently working on her dissertation as a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Minnesota in the Higher Education Policy and Administration program.

Innovative Educators Webinar: Embracing Technology to Promote Exceptional Student Services in Higher Education