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Librarians across the country have expressed concern and even outrage at the impending increase in subscription price of the popular journal Scientific American. While a personal subscription will remain $39 per year, the cost for just one print subscription for college and university libraries will rise from $39 to $300 on January 1. The increase was announced shortly after Scientific American was bought by the Nature Publishing Group.

Many librarians and faculty see this as an egregious example of predatory pricing strategies adopted by for-profit publishers who re-sell research results generated by colleges and universities. In this case, NPG is attempting to raise the price of a rather slim general interest magazine to the level of more scholarly journals publishing original research. Libraries from Penn State to Oberlin College to the University of Maryland Baltimore County are canceling their print subscriptions in protest of NPG’s effort and to save precious subscription dollars.

Across all Temple University Libraries we have had five (5) print subscriptions to Scientific American as well as a university wide electronic subscription, but like other institutions we plan now to drop most existing print subscriptions in protest and to spare our subscription budget the impact of such an increase. We will retain -– at least for a year -- the print subscription in Paley Library although it appears to have been read less than a dozen times last year according to our reshelving data.

Those concerned at such predatory pricing might consider emailing the editors of Scientific American.

In this day and age it is often surprising to receive a corrupted document from a student or colleague. Most of us know how to properly save our documents and either send them as e-mail attachments or upload them to an external site, such as a Blackboard course. But a new web business sells corrupted files that can then be sent in order to meet a deadline, but which the receiver won't be able to use. The site, Corrupted-Files.com charges $3.95 for a corrupted file. The information on the site makes it clear that it is intended for students who need to buy more time to complete their work. The idea is that the student submits the corrupted file to meet the assignment deadline. Then, after a few days, when the professor is unable to read the garbled document he or she e-mails the student to request a working version of the file. The student feigns surprise about the corrupted file and then proceeds, several days later, to send a working file. Thus the student technically meets the assignment deadline yet actually has extra time to complete the work.

News about Corrupted-Files.com was originally reported in InsideHigher Ed, and it was interesting to read that the site creator just set up the service as a joke and really didn't expect anyone to take it seriously. Yet when he started getting requests from students and others for corrupted files he decided to make a profit off the service. It is worthwhile to review the comments to the story from faculty, some who are amazed that any student would go to such efforts to avoid an assignment deadline to others who offer advice on how to prevent getting duped this way, and yet others who point out that Microsoft products aren't perfect and that sometimes files really do get corrupted. While the site is still up and appears to be doing business as usual, the "secret" the site asks you not to share is now out of the bag. It now is just a question of time as to whether or not students will realize their professors are going to be a bit more wary about the old "corrupted file" excuse.

Did you know that when students were asked to associate one word with the way they feel when assigned a research project the responses included angst, tired, dread, fear, anxious, annoyed, stressed, disgusted, intrigued, excited, confused, and overwhelmed? That's according to a new report titled "What Today’s College Students Say about Conducting Research in the Digital Age." The report comes from an organization called Project Information Literacy. They conducted focus groups and one-on-one interviews with students to find out what it is like to be a college student these days. Their major finding is this: Research seems to be far more difficult to conduct in the digital age than it did in previous times.

Perhaps that is not completely unexpected. But this finding and many of the other insights in this valuable report can help those who assign research papers and projects to better understand the feelings and experiences of today's student as he or she navigates their way through the electronic information landscape. For example, students report their growing dependence on Wikipedia because it provides them with the context they need to begin a research project; many students report not knowing where to begin their research. This is where the librarians at the Temple University Libraries can help.

They are experts on not only how to begin a research project, but how to acquire the necessary information and skills to finish it as well. They can help students to identify the appropriate resources, to select good research terminology, to structure a working search strategy and even how to capture and organize the content. That's why librarians are now engaged in meeting every section of English 0802 (Analytical Reading & Writing) for two sessions in every semester. This is the perfect opportunity to learn how to conduct research in the digital age without the anxiety. Librarians are also available to developed customized research instruction sessions for any course - and many Temple faculty already take advantage of this. If you would like to do more to reduce your students' research anxiety - to reduce their dependence on Wikipedia - and to start seeing better research papers - contact your department's liaison librarian or contact Steven Bell for more information.

A new report discusses the different ways in which scholars find articles and other materials of interest. "How Readers Navigate to Scholarly Content" is published by Simon Inger and Tracy Gardner for a consortium of scholarly publishers, including the Nature Publishing Group. It examines how scholars start their search for content and how they navigate different search resources. Current articles are extremely important to scholars in helping them keep up with the latest research in their field, and faculty use different strategies to do this. For keeping up with those journals for which they have no personal subscription many faculty rely on Table of Contents (TOC) alerts. Many faculty may not be aware that nearly every major aggregator database and e-journal collection to which the Temple University Libraries subscribe has this feature. It is fairly easy to create a TOC alert for any one of the thousands of journals accessible electronically through the Libraries.

Among the survey questions faculty were asked I found "How often do you follow links to a publisher's e-journal web site from these starting points" of particular interest. Figure 5 (pg. 18 of 32) shows a number of strategies to get to the e-journal and TOC alerts is far and away the top starting point.

Temple Universities librarians are well versed on the many different databases and e-journal collections that offer TOC alert services, and can advise faculty on how to efficiently register for and set up the alerts. We encourage our faculty to take advantage of this valuable feature. As the study shows, TOC alerts are not only a great way to access scholarly content, but are also the much preferred way that faculty have discovered as the starting point for their "keeping up" regimen. For more information about getting started with TOC alerts please contact Steven Bell, Associate University Librarian for Research and Instructional Services.

Beginning in the 1980s but accelerating over the last decade, libraries have been unable to keep pace with the skyrocketing costs of scholarly journals. For both private and publicly-supported research universities the publication "circle" looks something like this: 1) scholar obtains money to conduct research, perhaps through government grants or internal, tuition-supported funding; 2) scholar conducts and then publishes research in peer-reviewed journal; 3) university library "buys back" scholarly research from for-profit or societal journal publishers. The problem? Academic libraries, whose budgets sometimes do not even take inflation into account from year to year, can no longer afford to buy journal titles, especially in the sciences. Did you know, for example, that the annual $19,396 paid by Brown University Library for the journal Nuclear Physics A & B, matches the price of a "new midsize car" (Brown University's George Street Journal).

Libraries and others who care about open access to scholarly information are fighting back. "SPARC, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, is an international alliance of academic and research libraries working to correct imbalances in the scholarly publishing system... It's pragmatic focus is to stimulate the emergence of new scholarly communications models that expand the dissemination of scholarly research and reduce financial pressures on libraries" (About SPARC). The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) is another such initiative. DOAJ defines open access journals as ones that "use a funding model that does not charge readers or their institutions for access" (About DOAJ). Explore DOAJ's list of 110 scholarly, open access journals in history. 

Who benefits from these initiatives? In my view scholars, libraries, small and even large publishers benefit when research is made readily available to industry and the public at large. Think about it this way: It is reasonable to expect that the public will be more willing to support research that is readily available, and that the impact of this research will be greater and longer lasting.

Perhaps the greatest challenge facing the open access community is scholars' fear that publishing in open access journals will not advance careers or lead to tenure. After all, academic journals were created in the first place, in part, to promote the careers of authors. Scholars are also often concerned with a journal's impact factor. Despite these concerns, however, new information technologies and initiatives such as SPARC and DOAJ are here to stay. Consider the benefits of open access today!

Distinguished professor of women's studies, Janet Jakobsen of Barnard College, lectured at Paley on April 7.

Dr. Jakobsen is the Director of the Center for Research on Women at Barnard. Her research interests include: feminist and queer ethics; religion, gender, and sexuality in American public life; social movements and feminist alliance politics; and global issues of economics.

Jakobsen's research truly crosses disciplinary boundaries, and her engagement with a number of issues crosses the traditional lines established between the academy and activism.

This lecture was part of a series presented by the Libraries and the General Education Program, which aims to bring interdisciplinary scholars in a variety of fields to Temple. The departments of Religion and Jewish Studies also played a significant role in sponsoring Dr. Jakobsen's visit.

Dr. Jakobsen's lecture at Paley Library can be downloaded from iTunes U.
When you see the Temple University page, click Paley Library at the bottom, then Janet Jakobsen, then click "Get" and wait for the download to complete.

After the lecture, Dr. Jakobsen was interviewed by Professor of History, David Watt, and Professor of Religion, Women's Studies, and Jewish Studies, Laura Levitt.

Temple University Libraries, Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection recently received a generous gift of books on education, culture and the arts in Africa by Dr. Jack Lutz, a distinguished alumnus of the College of Education. The Blockson Collection is one of the nation’s foremost research centers on the study of the culture and people of Africa and its diaspora. The collection holds materials with a special emphasis on the experiences of African Americans in Philadelphia and the Delaware Valley region. It is located in Sullivan Hall on the main campus of Temple University, and was donated to the university in 1984 by renowned historian, Charles L. Blockson.

Dr. Lutz has travelled the world through initiatives and programs that brought a quality education to all. Dr. Lutz spent most of his time in Africa, and from that experience he gained a passion for its culture. He also began collecting books and materials that help tell the history and story of those he met overseas. These books and materials have since been donated to the Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection at Temple University Libraries. Here are excerpts of a broad conversation between Dr. Lutz and Nicole Restaino of Temple University Libraries.

• Nicole Restaino: How has your training at Temple’s College of Education impacted your life? You’ve traveled all over the world to bring education to those in need. How did your time at Temple prepare you for this?

Dr. Jack Lutz: Temple’s College of Education, along with the Boy Scouts and my time at Northeast High School, are some of the major influences in my life. My years at Temple imbued in me a sense of service, and I knew that is what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

I received so much sagely wisdom from so many of the professors at Temple over the years. The tutelage I received while earning my BA, MA and doctorate were truly inspirational.

• NR: What struck you about your time in Africa? Do you have any stories or anecdotes about a favorite place or experience?

JL: As much as I served Africa, Africa served me ten times over.

I was a professor at Glassboro College (now Rowan University) and was offered an opportunity to join UNESCO as an education advisor. I spent over 24 years in Africa in this position, developing teacher’s colleges. During my time in Africa, I am met my wife, Dr. Paz Lutz. A Fulbright Scholar and doctor of education herself, she served many years in Africa as well.

While I was in the village of Abraka, Nigeria developing teacher training programs for UNESCO, I realized that only two universities in Nigeria offered master’s in education. Both universities were quite a way from Abraka, so I proposed the idea of starting a program at the University of Benin, which was much closer. I presented the idea to the government of Bendel State and the university. We all concurred that starting a graduate teaching program was a step in the right direction. And that is when I got Temple on board.

I further proposed that Temple professors come teach in Abraka, and the new graduate program would be a joint venture between the University of Benin and Temple University. Shortly thereafter, the Dean of the College of Education at that time, Paul Eberman, along with late Temple University President Marvin Wachman, came to Abraka, Nigeria, to implement the cooperative program with financial help from UNESCO.

This arrangement existed for six years, I am proud to say, and graduates were awarded a dual diploma from Temple and the University of Benin. Outstanding master’s candidates in the program were offered an opportunity to study for their doctorate at Temple’s campus in Philadelphia. I believe that many top educators in Nigeria have their doctorate from Temple, in fact.

Another important part of my time overseas was my participation in communal life and the rites of passage of the diverse nations I lived in. I spent most of my time in Nigeria and Sierra Leone. I also lived in the Republic of Malawi, Uganda, Ethiopia and Swaziland. In Nigeria I was named Chief Dr. Jack Lutz, the Ehele of Abraka; Ehele being a Uhroba word for an “old warrior, not afraid to stand up and fight.” The cultural practices I was welcomed into have made such an impact in my life. In fact, my wife and I were wedded by a female Muslim magistrate (that’s quite unique!), a Catholic priest, and a justice of the peace while living in Sierra Leone. The warmth and diversity we experienced overseas was extraordinary. When we came back to Philadelphia after our wedding, we were also blessed in front of the Torah at a synagogue by a prominent Philadelphia Rabbi. (We touched all the bases!)

• NR: What was your impetus to begin collecting books and objects while in Africa?

JL: I began to amass materials related to curriculum and education in the countries in which I worked. My doctoral area of specialization was curriculum development and I helped to rework curriculum strategies in Nigeria, and documented that process. My interests later expanded and I started exploring materials on art and culture of local communities.

• NR: How did you find out about the Blockson Collection? Why did you see this as a fitting home for your outstanding collections?

JL: I knew collection founder Mr. Charles L. Blockson from Norristown, PA, years back, and that is how I first learned about the collection and its mission. My ultimate respect for Mr. Blockson and the collection’s goals to preserve African, African American and African Caribbean culture, led me to make my donation to the Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection at Temple University Libraries. I’m proud to know, as a Temple grad, that the university prioritizes this amazing collection, which is one of the best around on African and African American life. I’m also proud that I could contribute to its mission with my donation.

• NR: How can the Temple community benefit from your gift? Are there any specific ways in which College of Education students might utilize the materials now housed at the Blockson Collection?

JL: The materials I donated to the Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection are good research tools for the Temple community as a whole. These materials will be of particular use to students in the College of Education, in the areas of comparative educational and cultural studies, in specific. Graduate students can use these primary sources for doctoral and masters level research, while undergraduate classes can have a directed experience with the materials; they can be closely tied to a course syllabus at the undergraduate level. Courses in many areas, such as Africana studies, American studies, International studies and regional/area disciplines will also benefit from the materials. Several of the books, which are on African arts and crafts, should be useful to students in the Tyler school of fine arts as well as students of art history and anthropology.

• NR: Thank you so much, Dr. Lutz. Temple University Libraries and the Temple community are certainly thrilled by your contribution to the Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection. I can’t wait to see the materials myself, in the collection’s wonderful new home in Sullivan Hall. Thanks again.
To finish off our conversation, what are you and Paz doing now?

JL: We continue to be deeply involved with service and education overseas. Most recently, our endeavors have taken us to Eastern Europe, where we served in the Peace Corps, which we joined in 1997, when I was 75 years old. We spent four years in Poland, working in a small town by the name of Nowy Sacz (about 100 miles SouthEast of Krakow), teaching English and instructional methods. Now we live in New Jersey, and are still involved with Temple’s College of Education. I hope that Paz and I inspire others to teach and live a life of service.