A new Deloitte survey revealed that only 23 percent of federal managers are “very confident” that their cybersecurity staff had the skills needed to accomplish their agency’s cybersecurity priorities, and less than half (47 percent) were even “somewhat confident.”
For the “Cyber Workforce Preparedness Survey,” Deloitte asked 100 federal agency employees involved in cybersecurity initiatives about the state of the cyber workforce, their level of concern about meeting their agency’s cybersecurity objectives and the technical and behavioral competencies they look for in new hires.
“This survey makes it absolutely clear that the federal government needs to do more to address the acute shortage of skilled cyberspecialists in its workforce. The people who are most familiar with the government’s cybersecurity fields are telling us that our cyber skills shortage could prove to be a great vulnerability to securing and safeguarding the nation’s systems and infrastructure.
Info Technology: U.S. Government: "Closing the Cyber Skills Gap"
Library of Congress Adds 178K Digitized Pages to Historic Newspaper Database, Preview of New Interface Avail
From an LC Announcement:
The Library of Congress has updated the Chronicling America site with an additional 178,000 pages (including 25 new titles) and a “sneak peek” at upcoming changes to the Web site itself. These changes include a new overall look, a “100 Years Ago Today” daily slideshow, new search features, and improved results navigation, to name a few. Take a look and use the Feedback [+] button to let us know what you think!
Chronicling America is produced by the National Digital Newspaper Program, a partnership between the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress…. Read more about it!
Access the Chronicling America Database
Take a “Sneak Peak” at a New Look and Some New Feature Coming Soon to Chronicling America
Kirkus Set to Release a Discovery Engine for Childrens's Book Apps in Early March
Paul Biba at TeleRead alerts us to something coming soon from Kirkus Reviews
Via a News Release:
Maintaining its position as the first review resource to bring a critical eye to children’s book apps as a distinct new category, Kirkus Reviews today announced the creation of a discovery engine devoted exclusively to this burgeoning area of publishing and app development. Available in early March, it will be found at http://www.kirkusreviews.com/childrens-book-apps/.
[Clip]
Distinguished from digital illustrated books by their interactive elements, more than 400 children’s books stormed into the app world during the second half of 2010. A call to curate kid’s storybook apps has been made over the past month by parents, educators, librarians and publishers. Last month, Kirkus announced the first Top Ten list for this category.
Open Book Alliance on "The Google Book Settlement – One Year and Still Waiting"
A commentary by the OBA placed online today looks at what has changed, what has not changed, and asks, “where are we today” in terms of the Google Book Settlement.
One Example From the What Has Changed Portion of the Article
As Publishers Weekly noted, “Google eBooks overnight becomes the largest e-book provider in the world” – a title that would likely be cemented if the Google Book Settlement is approved, effectively giving Google a court-sanctioned monopoly over millions of digitized books. The launch of Google eBooks should dispel any remaining notion that Google is scanning books for some higher, altruistic purpose – the launch of eBooks and the acquisition of eBook Technologies just a few weeks later demonstrates that Google, as with any corporation, is simply in it for the money.
The “What has NOT Changed” section consists of a list of the still unaddressed objections the U.S. Department of Justice
The article concludes with a couple of comments about “Where are Web Today.”
In short, the list of concerns with the GBS has only grown over the last year, and Google’s actions in the eBook market and elsewhere have done nothing to assuage the problems that have existed from the beginning.
Now Online: The January/February 2011 Edition of CLIR Issues
Articles In The Latest Issue (no. 79) Include:
Extent of Orphan Works Examined in New Publication Series
CLIR has launched a new publication series, “Ruminations.” The series will feature short research papers and essays that bring new perspective to issues related to planning for and managing organizational and institutional change in the evolving digital environment for scholarship and teaching.
We inaugurate the new series with a report by John P. Wilkin that posits the scope of works in the public domain and probable extent of orphan works in our research library collections, based on an analysis of the HathiTrust book corpus. The question of rights status is critical since it governs how works can be used or reused, especially in the digital environment.
Recent research shows that HathiTrust’s collection—which currently holds more than 5 million digitized books—is highly representative of research library collections. On this premise, Wilkin has analyzed HathiTrust’s holdings and drawn preliminary conclusions about the proportion of works that are in-copyright, in the public domain, or are orphans—that is, works whose holders cannot be located.
Wilkin conducted his analysis by examining the HathiTrust book corpus by publication date—pre 1923, 1923–1963, 1964–1977, and 1978 to present—periods that align with changes in US copyright law. The works included both US and non-US published titles.
Digital Library Federation Update
A new DLF web site will go live next month.
Frye Institute 2011 Participants Named
CLIR Offers New Workshops on Participatory Design in Academic Libraries
Calling all CLIR Sponsors to Join our April 6 Dialogue on Deep Collaboration
Register now to learn about collaborative programs that offer new services and tools that reinvigorate libraries and promote new areas of academic research. At CLIR’s 2011 Sponsors’ Symposium, “Collaborative Opportunities Amidst Economic Pressures” to be held Wednesday, April 6, in Arlington, VA, you will gain insight into three new models—the Blacklight/Hydra Project, the Medical Heritage Digital Collaborative, and Germany’s TextGrid: A Virtual Research Environment for the Humanities.
You will also hear about the latest developments with CLIR’s Digital Library Federation and its future plans. Afterwards, you will have the opportunity to share your ideas and engage colleagues in small group discussions about current and potential collaborative initiatives.
The agenda is available at www.clir.org/activities/registration/11sponagenda.pdf
CLIR Offers Dissertation Fellowship in Partnership with the Library of Congress
Register Now for Symposium, Assessing Options for Large Collections
"Special 301 Report: Publishers Submit Annual Review of Global Intellectual Property Protection to USTR"
From an Association of American Publisher’s Announcement:
“The Association of American Publishers (AAP), through the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA), today submitted its annual Special 301 Report to the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). The report details issues related to intellectual property rights protection and market access in a number of foreign countries.
AAP’s report was part of the annual collective filing by the seven trade associations comprising the IIPA, a coalition representing U.S. copyright-based industries working to improve international protection and enforcement of copyrighted materials and open up foreign markets closed by piracy and other market access barriers.
The American publishing industry is waging a multi-faceted campaign to identify and mitigate pirated content. Yet the American publishers continue to suffer significant economic harm in key overseas markets as a result of commercial scale photocopying, illegal print runs, unauthorized translations, CD-R burning of textbooks and increasing online piracy. The AAP report highlights copyright protection and enforcement problems in 40 countries/territories and recommends that 33 of them be placed on an appropriate USTR “watch list.”
Canada’s copyright reform legislation, Bill C-32, raises serious concerns for the publishing sector as it introduces a host of new exceptions to protection, many of which exceed international standards. Some are especially harmful to the publishing sector, threatening to erode distinct markets of the educational community and to negatively impact the well-established collective licensing mechanisms for administering permissions to copy works for educational
use. “
More Info About the Report From the IIPA
Access the Full Text Report (via IIPAA)