UCLA University Librarian

I spent Friday with Sarah Thomas, the Bodley Librarian, at Oxford.  We had a chance to compare notes about the changes in our two universities, the challenges of tightening budgets, and plans for our libraries.  Many of the issues that we are facing at UCLA are being faced there as well.  Planning for their storage facility continues after numerous stops and starts and the challenges of buildings that date back to the 1500s are far different than what we face on the UCLA campus.

I was joined by Carol Christ, President of Smith College (formerly Executive Vice Chancellor at UC Berkeley), Sarah Thomas, and Paul Alpers (Carol’s husband, professor emeritus at UC Berkeley).  We engaged in a lively discussion of the challenges of public and private higher education.  Smith has just finished instituting a 15 percent reduction in their campus-wide budget that will cover the next two years.

One can even smell the books in the oldest of the reading rooms at the Bodley.  We weren’t allowed to pass this front gate even with Sarah along with us.

And we think that we have challenges retrieving books.  These conveyors snake underground through tunnels connecting the new and old Bodley.  A researcher can retrieve only ten books at a time.  Hope you made the right choice!

One of the highlights was being able to examine SAPPHO from the 2nd century A.D.  The fragments give a challenge indeed.  My purpose in this visit was to further discuss the potential partnership in digitizing about 4,000 nitrate negatives created by the late 19th century photographers Agnes Smith Lewis and Margaret Dunlap Gibson.  One of the manuscripts identified in the negatives is the “Sinaitcus Syrus” held at St. Catherine’s Monastery of the Sinai.  It is a palimpsest, the erased layer of which dates to the late 4th or early 5th century and preserves the oldest translation of the New Testament Gospels in Syriac.  The agreement is close and we now just have to figure out how to get it done.

The highlight of my afternoon, was a visit to All Souls College for tea with UCLA Professor Claudia Rapp who is on sabbatical at Oxford.  After gathering the keys, she took me to the All Souls College Library (above) and to the chapel.

I arrived back in London pretty tired from a most productive and exciting day.  Saturday took me to the Olympia Boook Fair where I saw several John Fante volumes that we couldn’t afford.

During a trip home a couple of summers ago my sister gave my daughter some of the bonnets, sweaters, and booties that my mother made for my sister when she was born.  So Ellie got all dressed up yesterday in her finest.

As they say, they don’t make them like this anymore.  Mom knit and crocheted all of the baby clothes for her babies.  Since my sister is my daughter’s god mother, I am pleased that she passed them along.

As my mother said, “Every stitch was made with love.”

One of the pleasures of getting to be my age is watching your children grow and take on their place in life.  Especially nice is accepting your grandchildren into the world.  Many of you know about my grandson Mason.  He is now joined by Ellie Rose Marie Ray who arrived at 1:44 am this morning.  She weighed in at 7 lbs. 5 ounces and is 21 inches long.  And she has a full head of hair.

Momma and Ellie are doing fine. The doctor comes by this morning to check her out.  But she is sleeping already and resting up to take on the world.

Now this is a real “Miss California!”

Some of you know that I (and family) spend time in Northern Idaho whenever possible.  I was lucky to be there over Memorial Day and the weather was beautiful, the fields were beginning to turn green, and the rest was welcome.

Sunsets this time of year are beautiful and the days are growing longer.

Sitting on the deck the green field lays out in front and the breeze is light and peaceful.  Cattle are still grazing in the mountain to the West.  I am located in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.

The crab apple tree in the orchard was in full bloom but the lilacs and peonies were not yet blooming.  So I had to buy flowers in one of the markets to take to the cemetery on Memorial Day.

But now back to work!

There has been a lot of discussion surrounding the pending settlement between GOOGLE and the publishers and what impact it might have for our relationship with the project.  As many of you know, the University of California has committed to having many of its books scanned for inclusion in the Google Books database.  Recently, the University Librarians agreed to participate in the Hathi Trust to preserve these digital copies.  With the news of a pending settlement, there have been numerous discussions concerning these issues.  The Committee on Libraries and Scholarly Communication of UCLA’s Academic Senate will be discussing this topic during its meeting this week.

In attempting to capture the context for this discourse, you might want to see a couple of articles recently published.  They include:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/22281          (Be sure to read the comments linked at the bottom of the article which provide additional perspective.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/04/technology/internet/04books.html

http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/04/legally-speaking-the-dead-soul.html  (Pamela is at UC Berkeley and provides us a lot to consider.)

I am sure there are many more articles, blogs, meetings, and comments about this significant change in our library landscape.  I welcome your comments and thoughts. 

Added note on May 4, 2009:

ALA and ARL have just posted statement on the proposed settlement for your interest.  They may be found at http://www.arl.org/pp/ppcopyright/google/index.shtml

I spent 9/11/2008 at the Chancellor’s Retreat and was struck by the fact that no mention was made of the significance of the date until almost the end of the meeting.  I had begun the morning with thoughts and memories of that fateful day in New York City.

I was in my office at Queens Library being interviewed by a reporter from Newsweek having delayed my planned trip to Washington, D.C. that day until around noon.  My head of security, Mike Daly, rushed into my office, turned on the television to NY1, turned and said that the World Trade Center had been attacked.  I was sure Mike was kidding.  The reporter, Mike, and I sat there glued to the images flashing before us and the uncertainty of the reporter’s voice on air.

The reporter rushed off hoping to get back to Manhattan, and we immediately went into crisis mode and began contacting branches to attempt to calm folks and make sure that our 63 facilities remained open as long as people needed to be there.  The city transportation came to a standstill.  Internet in 23 of our branches was down because their lines ran through the Verizon center at the World Trade Cente. Cell phones were still working for the most part.  By late afternoon, most were making their way to their homes or had arrangements of places to stay.  A number of our staff who lived in lower Manhattan close to the site (thankfully all were at work that day) had made arrangements for places to stay.  A number walked from their work back across bridges into Manhattan.

As I gathered senior managers into our control center, we decided we would open all branches the next day.  The city had closed schools and other facilities, but we felt it important that we be open and ready to have people come in and they did.  Thousands came to their branches as a place of connection and to get information.

The rest of the story would unfold, and I have many thoughts about how we handled it all. But those thoughts are too numerous for this.  But I did want to make note of the anniversary, and that it impacted so many people’s lives for so long.  As I sat at home that evening and watched from my terrace balcony the funnel of smoke and ash still rising from ground zero, I felt the world was a different place.  And it certainly has been.

Do pause and reflect a moment.

As many of you know, there has been further attempts to remove the requirements won by passage of the NIH Public Access Policy.  To see the full discussion please refer to the Managing Your Intellectual Property Blog 

http://blogs.library.ucla.edu/ipmanagement/2008/04/10/update-to-irb-policy-makes-research-involving-public-use-data-files-easier/

The House of Representatives Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property scheduled a  hearing to address the copyright policy implications of the NIH Public Access Policy.  The hearing will be this Thursday, September 11 at 1pm Eastern and can be viewed online.Several members of the UCLA community including the Director of Research, the Director of Office of Intellectual Property Administration, and the University Librarian today sent letters to the California delegation in support of the NIH Public Access Policy to make published research funded by NIH openly accessible after 6 months.Submit comments to your representative or the chair of the Judiciary Committee.

For more background on the issue, see the Library Journal article “NIH Public Access Policy To Face Copyright Challenge in Congress?”

I, along with the Vice Chancellor for Research and Office of Intellectual Property, have submitted comments on this issue.

Yesterday I passed the five year mark as University Librarian here at UCLA.  It gave me pause to stop and think a bit about what has happened in that short time.  First, it is like a dream come true–sitting in the chair occupied by Larry Powell and Bob Vosper; following Page Ackerman, Russell Shank, and Gloria Werner. (I didn’t personally know the first University Librarian.)  These university librarians laid the solid foundation upon which we build.

A lot has happened in these five years.  Much of this has been framed by budget challenges and restructuring of higher education within California and particularly the University of California.  UCLA has not been spared any of the examination and change.  Nor has its library.  Our strategic plan has helped us focus our attention and resources and will push us even harder in the coming months.

Next week I will attend the Chancellor’s planning retreat, and we will hear what is next.  I will use this space to try to frame some of that direction for you.  As we see the emerging “academic plan” for UCLA, it will help us position the library for our role in the future.

I am happy to be here as I work with some of the best librarians and staff anywhere in the country.

In October I had the honor of presenting the annual Coulter Lecture at the California Library Association Annual Conference in Long Beach.  The lecture has now been published in the California State Library Foundation Bulletin.  You can access it at http://www.cslfdn.org/pdf/bulletin_90.pdf.  The Coulter Lecture is presented each year by the library school alumni association at UC Berkeley.

 While in Northern Idaho in July, there was time for some contemplation with my grandson, Mason. We walked, talked, and he filled me in on next generation thinking from his point of view.What fun.