Archive for October, 2008

Science for those with short attention spans

While we were in Fiji for the IAMSLIC conference, the HMS Director, Steve Palumbi, was also flying through FIji on his way to Tuvalu to film another short movie for his MicroDocs project.  This project was released a few weeks ago at URL:

http://microdocs.stanford.edu/

All the movie clips are between 2 and 4 minutes based on the habits of today’s younger generation.  Accompanying those clips is background information with lots more detail including references.  The site was also designed to help K through 12 science teachers.  For a press release about the site, to to URL:

http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2008/october15/microdoc-101508.html

Most of the clips are from south seas islands and other exotic locations, so many of those that attended this years conference might find their island featured.

Joe

Hopkins Marine Station

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October 29, 2008 · Filed under Interesting sites

FAO Sabbatical Update

My sabbatical project at FAO in Rome ends this week. Part of this project was to identify content for the Aquatic Commons. We contacted all regional fishery management organizations and several regional fishery bodies with information about the Commons and a letter from FAO advocating wider dissemination and preservation of fisheries and aquaculture grey literature via the Aquatic Commons. I’m happy to report that several regional organizations have already responded positively.

The Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission has decided to partner with IAMSLIC to include their publications. Several Cyamus members have agreed to collaborate on this project and Debra Losey is coordinating with IATTC. Another important component of this project is as a test case for regional group sponsorship of an agency wishing to deposit into the Aquatic Commons.

A development project hosted at the Network for Aquaculture Centres in Asia-Pacific, the Support to Regional Aquatic Resources Management (STREAM) Initiative, has also agreed. As this project is no longer active, the rescue of STREAM publications documenting their work with aquaculture and poverty in Asia is especially satisfying.

There are a couple of other agencies engaged in preliminary discussions with Jean. She’ll keep you posted on future developments. We would also like to remind members that the Aquatic Commons Content Development Working Group is in need of additional members especially from Regional Groups outside North America.

Regards,

Joan Parker

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October 28, 2008 · Filed under Aquatic Commons

Google Lawsuit Settled

On October 28, 2008 Google, The Authors Guild, and the Association of American Publishers (AAP) announced a settlement agreement in regards to Google Book Search.  While Stanford was not part of the lawsuit, it did provide input to Google to influence the outcome of the settlement.  Stanford has put together a web page with information about the settlement, including the full text of the agreement should you want all the details.  The URL is:

http://library.stanford.edu/about_sulair/special_projects/GoogleBooks.html

Joe Wible
Hopkins Marine Station
Stanford University

Hopkins Marine Station

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October 28, 2008 · Filed under Announcements

New Chair of the Website and Communications Committee

I’m pleased to announce Mary Lou Cumberpatch as the new Chair of the IAMSLIC Website and Communications committee. Marcia Croy Vanwely as Junior President Elect will also play a role in keeping our web site up-to-date.

In addition, I’d like to recognize the other members of the committee and their respective responsibilities.

  • Steve Watkins, Software and Server Manager
  • Peter Fritzler, Blog Manager and IAMSLIC Secretary
  • Dan Belich, WHOAS Liaison
  • Kristen Anderson, Conference Proceedings Editor
  • Lenora Oftedahl, Listserv manager with Ruth Gustafson as back-up

I will stay on this year as we transition some of the responsibilities. If you have any questions, please let me know.

Sally Taylor

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October 28, 2008 · Filed under Executive Board news

“The Encyclopedia of Life, Biodiversity Heritage Library, Biodiversity Informatics and Beyond Web 2.0”

Please see the following article by WHOI’s Cathy Norton in the recent issue of First Monday:

http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2226/2013

Abstract;
E.O. Wilson, the noted entomologist at Harvard, “wished” for an authoritative encyclopedia of life that would be freely available on the worldwide web for the entire world. On 9 May 2007, The Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) was launched as a multi–institutional initiative whose mission is to create 1.8 million Web sites detailing all the known attributes, history, and behavior, about every known and described species and portraying that information through video, audio, and literature, via the Internet. A major contributor to the Encyclopedia is the Biodiversity Heritage Library that is currently scanning all the core biodiversity literature.

Posted by: Peter Fritzler, UNC Wilmington

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October 27, 2008 · Filed under Announcements, Interesting sites

FAO FishCode Programme supports Aquatic Commons Enhancements

The FAO FishCode Programme is raising awareness of AC and encouraging participation by developing country fisheries’ institutions.  Several developments have been requested that fall within the priority areas for FishCode support and the programme has agreed to fund the following enhancements to the Aquatic Commons functionality:

  • search, deposit and help screens in French and Spanish
  • developing the utility of the Issuing Agency field
  • development of offline and batch input

Final negotiations are being completed between the Programme and FCLA, and the work is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2009.

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October 22, 2008 · Filed under Aquatic Commons

New Free Electronic Journal

The Oceanographic Environmental Research Society has a new electronic journal called Journal of Marine Animals & Their Ecology.  This ejournal is in its infancy (only one issue so far) and it will be interesting to see if it survives.  I already sent an email to Vicki Soto at ASFA to see if they plan to pick it up for indexing.  The URL to the journal is:

http://www.oers.ca/journal/journal.html

– Joe Wible

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October 9, 2008 · Filed under Announcements, Interesting sites

“Soundings” newsletter now online back to 1980

With the permission of the Monterey Chapter of the American Cetacean Society, the Miller Library at Hopkins Marine Station scanned its print copies of the organizations Soundings newsletter to create a digital archive of searchable PDF files.  These files have been deposited into the Aquatic Commons digital archive and are available and fully searchable at the URL http://aquacomm.fcla.edu/.

One feature of this monthly newsletter is a section called “Sighting” which provides a record of marine mammals observed in Monterey Bay for the month.  Sightings are listed by date, time, and number of each species — a potentially useful data set.

While the library’s holdings were relatively complete, there were some missing issues.  Alan & Sheila Baldridge helped locate many of the missing issues, but there are still a few that were not found.  A list of the remaining gaps is below.  If anyone has one or more of these issues, the library would appreciate borrowing them in order to make digital copies to complete the archive.  Please contact Joe Wible at wible@stanford.edu or 831-655-6228.

Seeking to borrow following issues of Soundings:
1981 – April
1985 – July
1987 – Nov
1988 – July, Aug, Oct
1989 – Jun, July, Aug, Oct
2002 – July

– Joe Wible
Hopkins Marine Station
Stanford Univeristy

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October 9, 2008 · Filed under Aquatic Commons

CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Hobart Library refurbishment

Those IAMSLIC members who visited Hobart, Tasmania for the conference in 2004 may remember the library as it was then.

In early 2005, space constraints in the Division initiated a review of the library space. It has taken a long time, much planning and discussion and a great deal of work in the collection, but the library refurbishment is now complete.

The library has been reduced in size by about one third, which necessitated a great deal of reduction of the collection. We disposed of a great deal of material, either by offering to other libraries within CSIRO, Australia generally or overseas. Some items were identified for disposal and offered to staff,  which was a very very popular move. Staff regularly visited out “give-away” table and items were eagerly snapped up.

We now have a smaller, but more functional work space for the staff, and we were particularly pleased that we retained the general study and reading areas for staff to use. We also have an area allocated for virtual training and team meetings.

Meredith Hepburn

Joel MacKeen

Angela Webb

 

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October 2, 2008 · Filed under Uncategorized