U of M News Wire: June 6, 2007

 
University of Minnesota agreement with Google to improve access to books for people living in Minnesota and around the world

By Patty Mattern and Christopher James
U of M News Wire

A new University of Minnesota agreement with Google will make it easier in the future for people living all around Minnesota to get access to millions of books.
 
The University of Minnesota, along with the 11 other Midwest universities in the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC), have entered into a ground-breaking collective agreement with Google to digitize up to 10 million bound volumes, nearly doubling the number of universities participating in the Google Book Search Project.
 
For researchers, the digitization of so many books will revolutionize their work. Currently, researchers and members of the public can spend enormous amounts of time trying to track down a specific piece of content in a book by turning to the brief descriptions in card catalogs, tables of contents and indexes.
 
“Through Google, individuals will be able to search every word in millions of books.  Researchers will be able to conduct in-depth searches and make connections across works that would have taken weeks -- or even years -- to make in the past,” said Wendy Pradt Lougee, University Librarian at the University of Minnesota and member of the six-person team that negotiated the agreement with Google.
 
The U of M and the CIC announced the agreement today, June 6. The CIC agreement is unique among those executed with Google thus far in that it will include “collections of distinction” – areas of particular strength within each CIC library. The distinctive collections the U of M might include, for example, Scandinavian history, literature and culture; forestry; bees and bee-keeping; and the history of medicine, including oncology, radiology, and pediatrics.
 
This collaborative approach brings together the holdings of some of the world’s largest libraries into one massive digital resource. The CIC includes the University of Minnesota, University of Chicago, University of Illinois, Indiana University, University of Iowa, University of Michigan, Michigan State University, Northwestern University, Ohio State University, Pennsylvania State University, Purdue University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
 
“The University of Minnesota is making history today,” said University of Minnesota Provost Thomas Sullivan. “For our students and researchers, virtual access to printed volumes will change the face and pace of scholarly research,” Sullivan said. “Digitizing these collections is also a public good and supports the land grant mission of the University of Minnesota.”
 
This project also fits well into the U of M’s aspiration to become one of the top three public research universities in the world, Sullivan said.
 
“With this agreement, the university joins the ranks of prestigious institutions like Harvard University, Stanford University and Oxford University, who are already participating in the Google Book Search Project,” Sullivan said.
 
The collaborative nature of this agreement makes it unique. In fact, this library digitization agreement is one of the largest cooperative actions of its kind in higher education, Lougee said.
 
"By harnessing the complementary strengths and resources of CIC institutions, this unprecedented agreement will give students, scholars, and the public access to an extraordinary range of collections of distinction,” Lougee said. “Google's vast capacity for digitization far exceeds that of any of the participating institutions alone, making this effort a true partnership that reveals the historical depth of these collections from the heartland."
 
The contract between Google and the CIC institutions is for six years with an option to renew. Google will fund digitization of up to 10 million volumes in CIC library collections. In turn, each CIC institution will support the costs of retrieving and preparing the books for digitization. The University of Minnesota will contribute up to one million volumes from its University Libraries collections. Prior to the Google Book Library initiative, libraries estimated the costs of digitization at approximately $60 per volume, according to the CIC. Hence, the value of this project to the University of Minnesota could reach $60 million.
 
Once digitized, Google will make these volumes available through its free globally accessible search service. The digitization initiative will include both public domain and in copyright materials in a manner consistent with copyright law, Lougee said. Google will make available brief  “snippets” of in copyright materials through its search engine, directing viewers to avenues to purchase the volume or borrow a library copy. Public domain materials can be viewed, searched or downloaded for printing in their entirety from the Google site. For U.S. published material, “public domain” works generally include those published prior to 1923.  For users in the United States, the Google Books Library project treats all books published after 1923 as protected by copyright, except for books to which no copyright was attached in the first instance, such as federal, state and local government documents.  
 
For the University of Minnesota Libraries and its peer CIC institutions, this initiative is also an important step to preserve and stabilize the libraries’ legacy collections, providing broader and more in-depth access to historically significant print resources.
 
“This partnership allows for library digitization at a scale and scope that would not be possible within the limited means available to the individual universities. To preserve important intellectual content without incurring significant digitization costs is a great benefit to the University of Minnesota and the other institutions,” Lougee said.
 
Two CIC member universities have pre-existing digitization agreements with Google, the University of Michigan and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. This CIC agreement does not affect or supersede the earlier agreements but will complement and extend the digitization already underway.
 
As a part of the agreement, the consortium also will create a first-of-its-kind shared digital repository to collectively archive and manage the full content of as many as five million public domain works held across the CIC libraries and ultimately provide access to a vast array of material with searches customized for scholarly activity.
 
 
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Reality-based, digital news game to educate people on civic issues and information literacy
 
U of M and Pine Technical collaborate

By Mark Cassutt
U of M News Wire

Two staff members in the University of Minnesota School of Journalism and Mass Communication (SJMC) are winners in the Knight News Challenge and will receive $250,000 to develop a reality-based, digital news game to educate people on civic issues and information literacy.
 
Nora Paul, director of the Institute of New Media Studies, and Kathleen Hansen, director of the Minnesota Journalism Center, wrote the grant proposal that became one of 25 winners selected from 1,650 applications.
 
They will use the award to develop “Playing the News” in collaboration with Johnson Virtual Reality Center at Pine Technical College in Pine City.
 
Playing the News uses real-world scenarios captured in a digital format where players have virtual access to newsmakers, reporters covering an issue or event, activists, politicians and experts. The intended outcome of the demonstration project is a software system that can be used by news professionals in any community. Creating an easy-to-use game development system will allow organizations to tailor scenarios to local issues.
 
“News organizations can engage their communities in the work of citizenship and help them understand the intricacies of covering news events by using real issues as they arise, the words and actions of real stakeholders, the actual reports and documents generated by policy experts, the news stories created by journalists and other sorts of information,” said Paul. “This gives people an engaging way to explore the issues in their community and makes it possible for them to develop practical courses of action based on a new understanding of those issues.”
 
The difference between Playing the News and other news-based games will be its representation of the issues found in a specific community locale, Hansen explained. “This project is less of a game than some of the other things available and more of an opportunity for citizens to move through all the layers of an issue to uncover the key sources involved in it,” she said.
 
Once the game development system is ready, Paul and Hansen plan to provide training and outreach to news professionals and others on how to incorporate it into their web sites. Feedback and research into the impact of scenario-type play on citizen’s understanding and engagement will be tracked and reported in a variety of research studies. The SJMC will also host a conference to introduce the game development system to news professionals and educators as part of the grant obligations.
 
The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation funded the contest to help lead journalism into its digital future. Grants totaling more than $12 million were awarded to individuals, organization or businesses with ideas and projects that transform community news. Projects had to utilize digital media, involve new forms of news in the public interest and focus on a specific geographic community in order to meet eligibility requirements.
 
 
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Growing Concerns
A parenting question-and-answer column with Dr. Martha Erickson of the University of Minnesota

Question: Should a 3-year-old have a TV/DVD player in his bedroom so that he can go to his room to watch movies and TV when his parents are not interested in watching the same program?
 
Answer:  I can’t imagine a reason such a young child should have a TV in his bedroom. Even for older children and teens, having a TV and/or DVD player in the bedroom (or a computer, for that matter) makes it too easy for kids to have an excessive amount of “screen time,” which takes time away from other more valuable activities. A TV in the bedroom also contributes to isolation of individual family members, cutting into time for families to be together for conversation and shared activities. Setting such a pattern with a 3-year-old is a bad idea all around.
 
Your message didn’t indicate whether you’re asking this question about your own child or about another family you know. But to parents who are considering placing a TV in their child’s room, I suggest the following:
 
• Keep the bedroom free of stimulating media technology of any kind. Focus instead on having a good reading light and a stack of age-appropriate books on hand. Make reading together a part of your bedtime ritual. And, as the child gets older, encourage him to read on his own at bedtime to help him relax and settle into a good night’s sleep.
 
• Be selective about the quality and quantity of TV or DVD-viewing your child does. And try to watch high-quality shows together, talking about them afterwards. With young children, asking “who, what, where, when and why” questions helps them develop critical thinking and language skills. And by focusing on the actions of characters – and the consequences of those actions – you can help your child develop important moral and social values.
 
• At times when you need something to keep an active child busy while you prepare dinner or make an important phone call, have your child do a puzzle or draw a picture at a nearby table. Or if you do decide to have him watch a favorite TV show or DVD, have him close by so you can keep an eye on him.
 
For more information about responsible use of media with children of all ages, visit the Web site of the National Institute on Media and the Family (www.familyand <http://www.familyand> media.org) The institute offers a wealth of research-based information to guide parents in making thoughtful decisions about the place of media and technology in their children’s lives.