"Don't Close the Book on Libraries" Rally

On November 4, over 250 library supporters gathered at the State House in Boston for the "Don't Close the Book on Libraries" rally organized by the Massachusetts Library Association. The demonstrators, who came to protest recent cuts in state funding for libraries, held signs and chanted, "Don't rip off our kids" and "Don't close the book."

"Public libraries level the playing field," said Richard Hoffman, chair of the literary organization PEN New England, in a speech during the rally. "Our public libraries make available the conversations of the past — the enthusiasms, arguments, warnings, discoveries — to people who would otherwise have no context for understanding the issues of our day. In a difficult time, our libraries are more essential than ever before. Funding them adequately is both a practical and a moral necessity."

In late October, Governor Deval Patrick said he intended to close a state budget gap by possibly closing the State House library. For more information and to sign a petition to save the library, go here: http://mastatelibrary.blogspot.com/2009/11/save-statelibrary. html.

Article by Katharine Dunn

Online Scrapbook in LIS 462

Each fall for the past several years, students in Candy's Schwartz's Digital Libraries class (462) have worked together to recreate a scrapbook online in digital form. The scrapbooks, chosen from the Simmons Archives, show a slice of life at Simmons during the early 20th century. Digitizing the scrapbooks makes them available to a wide audience of researchers and others in the Simmons community, and gives members of the 462 class invaluable experience in building a digital library from start to finish. The series, known as the Notable Women of Simmons College, can be found online at http://my.simmons.edu/library/notablewomen/.

This year's scrapbook, which launches online on December 10, was donated by Daisie (Miller) Helyar. Daisie studied Library Science and graduated from Simmons in 1910, and in her scrapbook she collects report cards, photographs, theater programs, Valentines, letters, and newspaper clippings about such events as an outbreak of scarlet fever.

We invite you to flip through pages, look at individual items up close, and learn about Simmons during Daisie's era — all without having to leave your bedroom or office. Visit Daisie at http://gslis.simmons.edu/daisie.

Article by John Brigham

GSLIS Students Sign "Right to Research"

During the week of October 19-23, GSLIS faculty and students celebrated the First International Open Access Week (OAW) to raise awareness about the status of scholarly communication and the financial difficulties that libraries now face to meet patrons' needs. The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC), one of the OAW organizers, created a variety of downloadable resources available under a Creative Commons license and also assisted with and coordinated the celebrations around the world. OAW met its goal in drawing attention to increasingly open accessible scholarly communication and research.

Academic institutions, libraries, and research centers around the world planned various events and conferences to discuss the many aspects of open access. For an updated list of these events, you can visit the Open Access Directory, oad.simmons.edu, which was one of the co-sponsors of OAW and is hosted by GSLIS at Simmons.

At GSLIS, we created a website to promote OAW, which was the default page on computers in the GSLIS Tech Lab leading up to and during the week. The LISSA Chapter held an event educating the college librarians and students on the usefulness of institutional repositories. The ASIS&T Chapter discussed with students libraries' high subscription costs. Scott Lapinski, the Digital Resources and Services Librarian at the Countway Library Harvard Medical School, was the SLA Student Chapter guest, where he gave a talk exploring the ways of "Engaging Researchers in the Open Access Conversation."

On the morning of October 19th, Professor Peter Suber, Berkman Fellow at Harvard University and Senior Researcher at SPARC, met with selected student leaders, librarians, and faculty interested in open access and answered their questions in a roundtable discussion. On Wednesday, October 21st, GSLIS Associate Professor Robin Peek discussed the role of libraries as open-access journal publishers and made suggestions on how students should prepare in their course of studies to take on a leadership role in scholarly publishing. At the second part of this event, LISSA President Holly Erickson signed on behalf of the GSLIS students the "Student Statement on the Right to Research."

Under the auspices of SPARC, student representatives composed the student statement, which recognizes that even though technology is improving, access to research articles is still restricted. This statement proposes open access as the alternative route researchers can take to make their content available free of cost to everyone. Therefore, the statement calls students to sign it because open access (a) improves students' educational experience, (b) is a democratic way to access scholarly publications, (c) advances research, and (d) allows increased visibility and scholarly impact for authors and their papers. In addition, the statement urges the government, research funders, and researchers themselves to make their research public at no cost.

Overall, the First International Open Access week at GSLIS was successful. There was a prominent student presence at all events. I am confident that though the week is over, student activism will live on and that future librarians and information specialists of GSLIS will continue to fight to break access barriers.

Article by Nancy Pontika