Learning Opportunities

Undergraduate enrollment has declined in this country in each of the past five years, says a new report (ow.ly/MmHP30i601V) by Martin Kurzweil and Daniel Rossman for nonprofit research organization Ithaka S+R. As schools seek to maintain income while keeping tuition affordable, many have chosen to offer increased online and hybrid-learning opportunities. Kurzweil and Rossman look at how these learning models have played out in eight groups of higher education institutions and which practices can be best applied going forward.

Grant-Funded Resources

A Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR)–funded grant, “Cataloging Hidden Special Collections and Archives,” has resulted in online access to a group of resources relevant to those studying social life in the Appalachian region. The collections include material from the Commission on Religion in Appalachia, the Eastern Kentucky Housing Development Corporation, and the Human/Economic Appalachian Development Corporation. Inventories related to the items, which are the University of Kentucky Libraries’ Special Collections Research Center’s (SCRC) largest group of post–War on Poverty Appalachian primary sources, can be found in the University of Kentucky Libraries digital library, ExploreUK (exploreuk.uky.edu).

CLIR is also funding work at the University of Pennsylvania Libraries (ow.ly/Gt3230i60c7), which was bequeathed 525 boxes of diaries, programs, and scrapbooks that belonged to singer Marian Anderson. The grant will allow the libraries to digitize 5,000 items from the collection, made available to the public as well as academics on OPenn (http://openn.library.upenn.edu), a Penn Libraries’ platform for openly published and digitized cultural heritage materials.

Privacy and Social Media

Looking North, a new report from the Office of the Privacy Commissioner (OPC) of Canada, states that Canadians need better tools to help them manage and protect their online reputations. The “Draft OPC Position on Online Reputation” (ow.ly/wII230i60i5) explains that when the OPC named “Reputation and Privacy” as a strategic priority for 2015–20, it aimed to create “an environment where individuals may use the Internet to explore their interests and develop as persons without fear that their digital trace will lead to unfair treatment.”

The report, which includes perspectives from stakeholders, such as those working with young people, contains sections on improving education regarding privacy issues, promoting further research, legislative solutions, and “The Special Case of Youth.”

In other privacy news and of interest to libraries that have a presence on Facebook and/or help patrons manage their Facebook privacy settings, Erin Egan, Chief Privacy Office at Facebook, has revealed the company’s privacy principles for the first time (ow.ly/NQv630i60on). On Data Privacy Day (January 28), Egan outlined the tenets (e.g., “We give you control of your privacy,” “We help people understand how their data is used,” “We design privacy into our products from the outset”) and explained how the social media platform helps users become aware of them and put them into practice.

Bookmark this Blog

The British Library’s Medieval Manuscripts Blog highlights newly digitized items as well as familiar treasures from the library’s Medieval and Earlier Manuscripts Section. They recently announced a “mammoth” new list of 1,943 manuscripts and documents made in Europe before 1600 that are now available digitally (ow.ly/F4qc30i60vq). Another recent post (ow.ly/AdXe30i60AB) features “glossed”—or annotated—Bibles and offers a look at what the library calls “the medieval equivalent of hypertext.”

NEA NEWS

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has released its 2018 guide, which details the programs and activities supported by the organization and lists deadlines for grants and fellowships funded by the NEA, many of which relate to library work. The guide also offers information on NEA Literature Fellowships, Lifetime Honors, and government partnerships. See ow.ly/R3Vn30i60Hf.

Weeding Widely

Dartmouth University’s Baker-Berry ­Library has announced that, owing to space constraints, it will weed 59,000 books and journals, or about 2.9 percent of its collection. This plan, set to happen between January 2018 and June 2020, will target items owned by other libraries or that no longer support the institution’s curriculum, explained the library in an email to faculty. Of note to libraries contemplating a similar plan will be an article from the Dartmouth, the university’s student newspaper, which quotes faculty as well as Barbara Sagraves, the interim associate librarian for information services, on why the deaccessioning is necessary and how it will improve user experience (ow.ly/h9Mk30i61Kd).

iBooks Redesign

Just when reference librarians thought they had their users’ ereading devices down pat, Bloomberg Technology announces (ow.ly/kLAq30i61QP) that Apple is redesigning its iBooks reading app for iPhones and iPads, so things could be about to change. Apple has hired an executive from Amazon.com to help, says Bloomberg, and accordingly, the new app, which is expected in the coming months, “will include a simpler interface that better highlights books currently being read and a redesigned digital book store that looks more like the new App Store launched last year.” The app will also include a dedicated tab for audiobooks.

Henrietta Verma is a former reference librarian and a reviewer for LJ and School Library Journal. Gary Price is a librarian, writer, and consultant and aggregates LJ’s INFOdocket