The NISO Framework Working Group with support from the Institute of Museum and Library Services has released the third edition of A Framework of Guidance for Building Good Digital Collections. his Framework of Guidance for Building Good Digital Collections has three purposes: To provide an overview of some of the major components and activities involved in creating good digital collections. To identify existing resources that support the development of sound local practices for creating and managing good digital collections. To encourage community participation in the ongoing development of best practices for digital collection building. Each section sets out a set of principles with supporting documentation/resources.

The System Development Life Cycle (SDLC) process applies to information system development projects ensuring that all functional and user requirements are met by using a structured and standardized process during all phases of a system’s life cycle. Systems developed according to information technology (IT) best practices are more likely to provide secure and reliable long‐term performance. The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) engaged CliftonLarsonAllen’s (CLA’s) to perform an audit of the Library’s SDLC process to assess the maturity of the Library’s current policies and practices and to evaluate the efficiency of Information Technology Services’ (ITS) process for structuring, planning, and controlling the development of the Library’s vital information systems. This included an assessment of ITS’ compliance with the Library’s SDLC policy and the application of generally accepted IT best practices. In its report, CLA identified several weaknesses in the Library’s SDLC process that places the Library at risk of developing IT systems that are not adequately documented and lack cost and performance data needed to properly monitor and make prudent IT investment decisions. By optimizing its current SDLC process, the Library can mitigate these risks while improving efficiency and governance of IT system development.

Report summarizing the findings of a project to "evaluate the impact of the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP) since its beginnings in 2004. Information about the program was obtained through interviews of project directors, performance reports from the awardees, and a survey of NDNP participants developed by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the Library of Congress" (p. 2)

Due to advances in resuscitation and defibrillation practices over the past decades, people are returning from the brink of death in numbers unprecedented in human history. Of the millions of people who survive drowning each year, about 20% report a near-death experience (NDE): a reported memory of profound psychological events that contain certain paranormal, transcendental, and mystical features. NDEs are usually hyperreal and lucid experiences dominated by pleasurable feelings and more rarely dominated by distressed feelings. This book presents a summary of 40 years of research on NDEs. It contains 22 drowning NDE accounts and recommendations for how water safety professionals can use NDE-related information in their work with people they successfully resuscitate.

The Library of Congress has established policies and procedures for managing its information technology (IT) resources, but significant weaknesses across several areas have hindered their effectiveness: -Strategic planning: The Library does not have an IT strategic plan that is aligned with the overall agency strategic plan and establishes goals, measures, and strategies. This leaves the Library without a clear direction for its use of IT. -Investment management: Although the Library obligated at least $119 million on IT for fiscal year 2014, it is not effectively managing its investments. To its credit, the Library has established structures for managing IT investments—including a review board and a process for selecting investments. However, the board does not review all key investments, and its roles and responsibilities are not always clearly defined. Additionally, the Library does not have a complete process for tracking its IT spending or an accurate inventory of its assets. For example, while the inventory identifies over 18,000 computers currently in use, officials stated that the Library has fewer than 6,500. Until the Library addresses these weaknesses, its ability to make informed decisions will be impaired. -Information security and privacy: The Library assigned roles and responsibilities and developed policies and procedures …

The scholarly record is evolving into a corpus of material vastly different from its previous print-based version. While in the past the scholarly record was largely defined by the formally published monographic and journal literatures, its boundaries are now both expanding and blurring, driven by changes in research practices, as well as changing perceptions of the long-term value of certain forms of scholarly materials. Understanding the nature, scope, and evolutionary trends of the scholarly record is an important concern in many quarters—for libraries, for publishers, for funders, and of course for scholars themselves. This report presents a framework to help organize and drive discussions about the evolving scholarly record. The framework provides a high-level view of the categories of material the scholarly record potentially encompasses, as well as the key stakeholder roles associated with the creation, management, and use of the scholarly record.

This book aims to enable the reader to quickly acquire a Python foundation. The material particularly feel quite comfortable to anyone with background in an object-oriented programming (OOP) language such as C++ or Java. Even if ones lack this background, they will still be able to read these sections, but will probably need to go through them more slowly than those who do know OOP. Some Linux knowledge would also be helpful, but it certainly is not required. Python is used on Windows and Macintosh platforms too, not just Linux. So, most statements here made for the Linux context will also apply to Macs as well. The author acknowledged that programming is a personal, creative activity, so everyone has his/her own view.

The National Science Communication Institute (nSCI) hosted a conference in late 2013 to explore the broad issue related to scholarly publishing. The Open Science Initiative (OSI) is a working group convened by the National Science Communication Institute (nSCI) in October 2014 to discuss the issues regarding improving open access for the betterment of science and to recommend possible solutions. The following document summarizes the wide range of issues, perspectives and recommendations from this group’s online conversation during November and December 2014 and January 2015. The 112 participants who signed up to participate in this conversation were drawn mostly from the academic, research, and library communities. Most of these 112 were not active in this conversation, but a healthy diversity of key perspectives was still represented. Individual participants may not agree with all of the viewpoints described herein, but participants agree that this document reflects the spirit and content of the conversation.

Since 2011, OCLC researchers have been experimenting with Schema.org as a vehicle for exposing library metadata to Web search engines in a format they seek and understand. Schema.org is sponsored by Bing, Google, Yahoo! and Yandex as a common vocabulary for creating structured data markup on Web pages. OCLC’s experiments led to the 2012 publication of Schema.org metadata elements expressed as linked data on 300 million catalog records accessible from WorldCat.org.1 In 2011, BIBFRAME was launched by the Library of Congress (LC) as an initiative to develop a linked data alternative to MARC, building on the Library’s experience providing linked data access to its authority files. In the past year and a half, OCLC has focused on the tasks related to the use of Schema.org: refining the technical infrastructure and data architecture for at-scale publication of linked data for library resources in the broader Web, and investigating the promise of Schema.org as a common ground between the language of the information-seeking public and professional stewards of bibliographic description. BIBFRAME has focused on publishing additional vocabulary and facilitating implementation and testing. These new developments prompt the need to re-examine the relationship between the LC and OCLC models for library linked data. …

In "Taking Stock: Sharing Responsibility for Print Preservation," Roger Schonfeld surveys the progress made in the past decade, and warns against the conflation of collaborative print management and improved access to collections with preservation. This issue brief was presented at Preserving America's Print Resources II: A North American Summit in Berkeley, California, on June 25, 2015. The full conference program is available at http://www.crl.edu/events/preserving-americas-print-resources-ii-north-american-summit.

In 1942, Colonel Curtis E. LeMay and his 305th Bomb Group left Syracuse, New York, bound for England, where they joined the Eighth Air Force and Royal Air Force in war against Germany and her allies. Over the next three years LeMay led American air forces in Europe, India, China, and the Pacific against the Axis powers. His efforts yielded advancement through the chain of command to the rank of Major General in command of the XXIst Bomber Command, the most effective strategic bombing force of the war. LeMay’s activities in World War II are well-documented, but his personal history is less thoroughly recorded. Throughout the war he wrote hundreds of letters to his wife, Helen, and daughter, Jane. They are published for the first time in this volume, weaved together with meticulously researched narrative essays buttressed by both official and unofficial sources and supplemented with extensive footnotes. History remembers “LeMay, the Commander” well. From Wright Field, Ohio, to Hokkaido, Japan, will yield a better understanding of “LeMay, the Man.”

Book describing the early history of New Orleans and the Ursuline order's presence there. Notable figures from the order are discussed.

Monthly booklet containing a biography of Wendell Phillips, a famous Orator.

Monthly booklet containing a biography of Stephen Girard, a famous Businessman.

Monthly booklet containing a biography of Patrick Henry, a famous Orator.

Monthly booklet containing a biography of Friedrich Froebel, a famous Teacher and educationalist.

Monthly booklet containing a biography of Immanuel Kant, a famous Philosopher.

Book containing two German war histories.

Monthly booklet containing a biography of Henry David Thoreau, a famous American transcendentalist philosopher.

Book containing a series of photographs of famous individuals from Great Britain in the nineteenth century. Includes biographical information about the photographer.

Monthly booklet containing a biography of John Fiske, a famous Scientist.

Monthly booklet containing a biography of Jean Paul Marat, a famous Orator, journalist, and politician in the French Revolution.

Book containing two German war histories.

Monthly booklet containing a biography of Thomas Starr King, a famous Orator and American religious leader.