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Weekly News Digest
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August 29, 2011 — In addition to this week's NewsBreaks article and the monthly NewsLink Spotlight, Information Today, Inc. (ITI) offers Weekly News Digests that feature recent product news and company announcements. Watch for additional coverage to appear in the next print issue of Information Today.
CLICK HERE to view more Weekly News Digest items.
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University of California Libraries Expand Access to Orphan Works
The University of California Libraries will join the University of Michigan, University of Wisconsin, and University of Florida in a groundbreaking initiative to identify and make available digital versions of orphan works within the holdings of the HathiTrust Digital Library.HathiTrust is a partnership of major research institutions and libraries working to ensure that the cultural record is preserved and accessible long into the future. The majority of HathiTrust holdings are in-copyright works, of which an unknown but likely large proportion are so-called “orphans”—works whose owners cannot be identified or located. The University of California will join the effort to identify orphan works and publicize information about them in order to give rights holders an opportunity to claim them and make informed decisions about their availability within HathiTrust. It is likely that many people with these rights wish to make the books fully viewable. The majority of orphans probably are just that—lacking anyone to claim ownership. If rights holders do not claim the orphan works, the digital volumes will be made available in full view to HathiTrust partner library patrons if their libraries hold those works in their print collections. “This effort promises to expand access to a great number of digitized scholarly works in the UC Libraries’ collections that have previously been hidden from view,” said Laine Farley, executive director of the California Digital Library. “In addition to the more than 2.5 million public domain volumes already available within HathiTrust, this important project will bring a larger percentage of our digitized works directly to our students and faculty in support of their work.” The text of all of the works contained within HathiTrust is fully searchable today, but currently only works in the public domain or works whose copyright holders have given explicit permission can be consulted online in their entirety. The bulk of public domain works are pre-1923 books from the U.S. and government publications. Source: University of California Libraries
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Brandi Scardilli
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