Library funding increasingly going to online database subscriptions.

We have spent many hours listening to various librarians (public, school, college and university) talk about an increasing amount of the yearly budget going to pay for online database subcriptions to journals.  One new study by Scientific American has shown that requiring a subscription to a journal does NOT increase article citation.  That was a shocker and here is the study. 

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=open-and-shut-case-do-open-access

The relevant bit of the study is here:  "Nor is Davis convinced that OA benefits are as significant as some of the recent research has claimed. Davis headed two previous studies, the most recent of which was a randomized control trial for OA research. In 11 different physiology journals Davis's group randomly allocated research articles to be published OA or not, and tracked their usage and citations. The results, published in 2008 in the British Medical Journal, found that although OA articles were downloaded more frequently they were not cited significantly more than non-OA articles."

In Memoriam: Frank Turner

In Memoriam: Frank Turner

I did wonder why Mr. Turner would not accept my request for an interview. This is truly shocking.

Librarian Frank Turner dies suddenly

Posted by Mark Alden Branch '86 on November 11, 2010, 3:12 pm

Frank Turner ’71PhD. ©Julie Brown

Frank M. Turner ’71PhD, a long-serving Yale professor and administrator who just two months ago was appointed University Librarian, died suddenly this morning, according to an e-mail from President Richard Levin ’74PhD. He was 66.
Turner was the John Hay Whitney Professor of History and an esteemed scholar of European intellectual history. He was provost of the university from 1988 to 1992, and he had been director of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library since 2003. He is survived by his wife, the Reverend Ellen Louise Tillotson.

Extrinsic v. Intrinsic Value

Our 511 class had a really heated discussion over the instrinsic value of a book, which then moved into the realm of GOLD.  What I realized within the discussion is that commodities (like gold) do have an intrinsic value that can be estimated by looking at both tangible and intangible factors (see definition below).  I am, however, not sure about the intrinsic value of a book.   Prof. Lankes was adamant that the book ONLY had value that we attributed to it, there was no intrinsic value whatsoever.   Does anyone have any thoughts about this?


What Does Intrinsic Value Mean?The actual value of a company or an asset based on an underlying perception of its true value including all aspects of the business, in terms of both tangible and intangible factors. This value may or may not be the same as the current market value.  Value investors use a variety of analytical techniques in order to estimate the intrinsic value of securities in hopes of finding investments where the true value of the investment exceeds its current market value.

What Does Extrinsic Value Mean?
The difference between an option's price and the intrinsic value.

Investopedia explains Extrinsic ValueFor example, an option that has a premium price of $10 and an intrinsic value of $5 would have an extrinsic value of $5. Denoting the amount by which the option's price is greater than the intrinsic value, the extrinsic value of the option declines as its expiration date draws closer.

References

Extrinsic value definition Retrieved 11/5/2010, 2010, from http://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/extrinsicvalue.asp

Intrinsic value definition Retrieved 11/5/2010, 2010, from http://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/intrinsicvalue.asp

Library tours

So, last week we went on an 'in-depth' tour of the Bird library.  I was quite interested in knowing more about the man the library was named after, Ernest Bird, but frankly could not find out much about him except that he graduated from Syracuse in 1916.  I did find out that this library has 2.3M volumes, not too shabby compared to my 3,000.

We saw many of the services that are performed from book preservation to book wrapping (to care for older books).  The most fascinating aspect of the tour was seeing some of the old collections.  A book which came from Queen Elizabeth's private library, early stone tablets (no, not the original Ten Commandments), and a very unique diary with notes from the holocaust. 

The tour was very interesting, especially seeing how much work goes in to preserving the collection.  It made me think about digital libraries and how the future of the printed book is coming to an end. [sigh].