Brifely Noted
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Information Resource Description: Creating and Managing Metadata, Philip Hider. Chicago: ALA editions, 2012. 288p. $99.95 (ISBN 978-0-8389-1201-0)
Philip Hider is the head of the School of Information Studies at Charles Sturt University in Australia and a widely published author on cataloging, information organization, and description. Information Resource Description: Creating and Managing Metadata is an overview that would work well in a graduate course dealing with resource description, or for a librarian reviewing the principles and practices in this area. Information Resource Description begins with definitions and descriptions before moving on to chapters on the sources, quality, sharing, and standards with regard to metadata. In the final chapter, Hider discusses machine-generated, social, and professional sources of metadata and the role each will play in the future. (FR)
The Internet of Elsewhere: The Emergent Effects of a Wired World, Cyrus Farivar. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2011. 264p. $25.95 (ISBN 978-0-8135-4962-0, cloth; 978-0-8135-5078-7, eBook).
The development of Internet and computing technology is highly influenced by its social, political, and economic environments. In The Internet of Elsewhere: The Emergent Effects of a Wired World, Cyrus Farivar circles the globe to bring us insights on the Internet from South Korea, Senegal, Estonia, and Iran. In chapters on each of these countries, Farivar provides a brief history and the current status of their respective Internet technologies, from South Korea, which the author calls the “most wired country on the planet” and where eSports have attained a status found nowhere else, to Estonia, where Skype was born and where free or low-cost WiFi is almost universal, to Senegal, struggling to provide access to citizens with low rates of literacy in order to promote economic growth, and to Iran, whose citizens use social media to fight for human rights and democracy. Reflecting on the applications and practices of distant polities can awaken us to the embeddedness of our own technological circumstances. New possibilities become evident when one witnesses the technological challenges and adaptations of societies much different than one’s own. (FR) [End Page 329]
The Librarian’s Legal Companion for Licensing Information Resources and Services, Tomas A. Lipinski. Chicago: Neal-Schuman, 2013. 760p. $130.00 (ISBN 978-1-55570-610-4)
With academic libraries now spending significantly more on electronic resources than print materials each year, understanding the licensing process is a necessity for providing the broadest access at the lowest possible price while avoiding legal jeopardy. Tomas A. Lipinski’s The Librarian’s Legal Companion for Licensing Information Resources and Services covers this topic comprehensively and accessibly. Organized in manageable chunks, it allows the reader to dip into relevant sections through chapter and section headings as well as case and subject indexes at the back of the book. The first part of the book covers the legal and information environment of licensing, the second part the various licenses one is likely to encounter, and the third a very handy “toolkit” for evaluating licenses. This work will be useful for anyone who has a role in the licensing process. (FR)
Open Access, Peter Suber. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012. 230p. $12.95 (ISBN 978-0-262-51763-8).
Peter Suber is a well-known scholar and activist of open access. This brief and very readable account of open access is intended for busy researchers, scholars, and academics who might not fully understand the arguments that favor open access over more traditional models of research distribution and access. Each chapter addresses a key issue, like motivation, policies, scope, copyright, and economics, and can be easily read in about fifteen minutes. The book is punctuated by large-type page-length quotes relaying essential points. Ten chapters are followed by a glossary, endnotes, additional resources, and an index for those who want to pursue additional research. Anyone wanting a well-rounded overview of the challenges and opportunities offered by open access will find Open Access helpful. (FR) [End Page 330]
