Please see the following article by WHOI’s Cathy Norton in the recent issue of First Monday:

http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2226/2013

Abstract;
E.O. Wilson, the noted entomologist at Harvard, “wished” for an authoritative encyclopedia of life that would be freely available on the worldwide web for the entire world. On 9 May 2007, The Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) was launched as a multi–institutional initiative whose mission is to create 1.8 million Web sites detailing all the known attributes, history, and behavior, about every known and described species and portraying that information through video, audio, and literature, via the Internet. A major contributor to the Encyclopedia is the Biodiversity Heritage Library that is currently scanning all the core biodiversity literature.

Posted by: Peter Fritzler, UNC Wilmington

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The Oceanographic Environmental Research Society has a new electronic journal called Journal of Marine Animals & Their Ecology.  This ejournal is in its infancy (only one issue so far) and it will be interesting to see if it survives.  I already sent an email to Vicki Soto at ASFA to see if they plan to pick it up for indexing.  The URL to the journal is:

http://www.oers.ca/journal/journal.html

– Joe Wible

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Apparently our campus has recently made changes to the software that attempts to identify spam email messages and as a result, most of the ILL requests submitted via the Z39.50 Distributed Library or the Union List of Marine and Aquatic serials have not gone through correctly for the past week or so. I believe this was happening because the system has been inserting the requesting library’s email address into the “From:” address in the outgoing emails. Therefore, the email looks suspicious to the spam filters because the name of the sender is not someone with an account on the server from which the email is being generated (it appears to be a third party). I have changed the scripts in the Interlibrary Loan module so that ILL requests will now be coming from apache@io.csumb.edu which is a real user on the server. The requesting library will still receive a copy of each request they submit, but it will be in the “Cc:” field instead of the “From:” field. Hopefully this will solve the problem, but please contact me at steve_watkins@csumb.edu if you are still not receiving email copies of requests you have submitted.

Anyone who has submitted an ILL request in the past week should probably resubmit it if you have not heard from the owning library. Chances are that the email never got through to them, especially if you never received a confirmation email yourself.

My apologies for the problems and the inconvenience.

Warm regards,

–Steve Watkins

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Voting closed on Wednesday, 17 September, for the election of IAMSLIC officers and the consideration of four amendments to the Bylaws. The results are as follows:

IAMSLIC President-Elect 2010-11: Marci Croy-Vanwely

IAMSLIC Treasurer 2008-10: Sandra Abbott Stout

Amendment 1.  Shall Article VI – Regional Groupings of the IAMSLIC Bylaws be amended as follows:
Section 4: Maintaining Regional Status.
The DELETE: “REGIONAL GROUP”, INSERT: “MEMBERSHIP DATABASE MANAGER” will provide a membership list annually to the Executive Board. The Executive Board will review the list every two (2) years to determine if regional status for any Regional Group should continue.

Yes: 107
No: 6

Rationale: The annual census numbers are provided to the Executive Board by the Membership Database Manager. This change to the Bylaws simply reflects the change in reporting responsibilities.

Amendment 2. Shall Article VII – Officers of the IAMSLIC Bylaws be amended as follows:
Section 4: Expenses of Officers DELETE: “, THE NEWSLETTER EDITOR” and the Proceedings Editor.
Officers of the Association DELETE: “, THE NEWSLETTER EDITOR” and the Proceedings Editor shall not receive compensation for their day-to-day services to the Association. The Executive Board may, however, set an amount annually to support officers’ DELETE: “AND/OR THE NEWSLETTER EDITOR’S” and/or the Proceedings Editor’s attendance at the annual business meeting of the Association, the amount to be not more than thirty percent (30%) of revenue derived from membership dues during that fiscal year.

Yes: 106
No: 6

Rationale: IAMSLIC ceased publishing a newsletter with issue number 107 in February 2008.  This change to the bylaws will reflect that IAMSLIC no longer has a newsletter editor.

Amendment 3. Shall Article IX – Other Official Positions of the IAMSLIC Bylaws be amended as follows:
DELETE: “Section 1: Newsletter Editor. There shall be a Newsletter Editor responsible for the preparation of the IAMSLIC Newsletter. The Newsletter Editor shall be appointed by the President, with the approval of the Executive Board, and shall serve at the pleasure of the President.”
RENUMBER REMAINING SECTIONS 2, 3 AND 4 TO BE SECTIONS 1, 2 AND 3.

Yes: 105
No: 6

Rationale: IAMSLIC ceased publishing a newsletter with issue number 107 in February 2008.  This change to the bylaws will reflect that IAMSLIC no longer has a newsletter editor.

Amendment 4. Shall Article III – Membership of the IAMSLIC Bylaws be amended as follows:
Section 3: Dues.
Dues shall be established by the Executive Board, and shall be payable to the Association INSERT: “OR REGIONAL GROUP” on or before February 1.

Yes: 102
No: 11

Rationale and Impact: Voting “YES” will retain the federated regional group structure implemented in 2006 in which Regional Groups can collect dues in their native currency and retain 70 percent of their membership dues income to allocate as they see fit.  Voting “NO” will eliminate the federated structure and return IAMSLIC to its former method of operation.

Congratulations to our new officers and many thanks to the Nominations Committee for all of their efforts and to Jen Walton, our second candidate for President-Elect.

–Steve Watkins

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IAMSLIC,

I’m posting a message on behalf of Jan Haspeslagh who has just taken on a new job.   He will still be an IAMSLIC member so we won’t lose touch with him.  Join me in wishing him the best.  The Executive Board hopes to announce his replacement later this week.
Regards,
Barb Butler

Jan writes:
Dear Iamslic and Euraslic colleagues,

Following might come as a surprise for many of you, for wich I truly apologize. After a very long procedure, two weeks ago, I have come out as the winning candidate for the vacancy of university librarian at the Ghent University here in Belgium . This means I will soon change jobs from a strictly marine environment towards the more general scientific and educational university environment. I have chosen to take this step mainly because the long commuting I had to do from home to VLIZ (3h 45 min. each and every day…) were more and more annoying to myself and to my family. The job I’m taking on now means 20 minutes of travel each day, staying in the same line of work and even an (unexpected) increase in salary.

All this creates of course a quite difficult situation for Iamslic and Euraslic, with my future presidency and the joint meeting next year in Belgium. With regard to next meeting: my director has confirmed officially that he wished it to take place in Oostende at VLIZ, regardless of my resignation. We will work closely together until the end of this year to organize and prepare as much as possible to give my successor a head-start. As far as the presidency goes, it seems evident and logical to me that I step down as President-Elect as soon as possible, making way for another member that can take over quickly. Although I’ll stay at VLIZ until 31 December 2008, these last 4 months will be hectic enough in themselves, leaving little or no space for international activities.

Both Presidents, Barbara Butler and Barbara Schmidt have been notified last week, and the Iamslic Executive Board has been notified of my resignation at the first Executive Board meeting and will of course quickly proceed to take the necessary actions.

I’d like to express here that it makes me really sad that I will lose so many joyful and interesting contacts across the world. As far as I know these two groups are a unique fenomenon, also compared to other professional bodies, and I’ve enjoyed uncountable happy, funny, and sometimes even silly moments with al lot of you librarians. I’d like to thank so many of you who have put trust in me to help these organizations becoming the primary professional platforms for aquatic librarians, a trust not always met with the correct actions and ideas, but I might hope that I’ve left a small footprint here and there. In any case, I’ve had the joy of meeting new friends, and hopefully some of these contacts will last for longer than my term in aquatic science information…

Life is a chain of unexpected events that we try to knit together, but that keeps unraveling. I do hope, dear colleague, that you will not hold this too much against me, and I will stay in close contact with many of you as long as possible. In any case, I will attend next years meeting as a visitor, because I don’t want to miss the good beer and mussels, do I?

Thanks a lot to everyone, and so long,

Jan

Jan Haspeslagh
Flanders Marine Institute
Oostende, Belgium

 

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The following is a bi-monthly update on progress being made at the soon-to-reopen California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco.  Opening day is September 27th.

Aquarium:

-Aquatic Biologists Dave Chan, Nick Yim and Nancy Levine returned late Friday from a very successful week of collecting with Monterey Bay Aquarium.  A legion of Academy staff turned out to form a bucket brigade and help transport of hundreds of starfish, sea anemones, snails, crabs, chitons, limpets and other inverts from the loading dock to the California Rocky Coast tank.  It was great to see carts from Special Events, Accounting, Education etc all loaded with buckets of seawater and invertebrates.  Thanks to everyone who helped out.  

-Nick and Nancy spent about 36 hours in San Francisco, and then left again for a collecting trip down in Southern California with Aquarium of the Pacific and Cabrillo Aquarium.  

-The surf perch in the California Rocky Coast tank are already giving birth- there is a group of 10-12 youngsters cruising the tank, doing their best to avoid the Cabezon and Rockfish.

-There are now more than 1,600 fish in the Philippine Coral Reef exhibit.

-Biologists, Academy Staff and Contractors have begun to prepare the live food and jelly culture room in anticipation of the arrival of most of our jellies in early September.  

-The Swamp has been cleaned, prepared and is in final fill mode.  Fishes and the Snapping Turtles will be coming over this week, in anticipation of the alligators arriving on the 19th.

-The Alligator Gar tank is also in final fill and small fish (Texas Cichlids) will be placed in that tank within the next week or so.  

-Biologists are stocking the Flooded Forest gallery focus tanks.  Piranha are on site.  Angelfish, stingrays, electric eel, and Mata mata will follow shortly.

-Interpretative signs are going up everywhere

 

Planetarium:

– Planetarium seating installation was finished on the August 1. Now people will be able to sit down to see shows.

– Most of the final construction, iron work, electrical and painting were completed in the theater.

– Working hard last week and this to make theater capable of doing “talkies.” Namely, we’re finishing up the installation of the Meyer sound system. 

– Speaking of talkies….Sigourney Weaver was recorded for the planetarium show.

– Production team views their work twice daily in the theater.

 

Museum:

-The L-1 floor is full of exhibits!  Nearly all of the modules are in on the “Islands” (east) side, and a few of the exhibit frames on the west side (“Alerted State”) arrived last week. The graphics and audio/visual equipment is currently being installed on the east side.

-Upstairs, the Naturalist Center cabinetry should be completely installed by the end of this week.

-In the Early Explorers’ Cove the exhibits are now nearly complete and looking very inviting for young visitors.

Larry Currie

Academy Librarian

www.calacademy.org

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Some time ago I got notice announcing the new e-only “Marine and Freshwater Diversity” journal. I have been waiting for some content to show up on its web page before adding the title to the list of electronic journals here at Hopkins Marine Station. I decided to email the editor to see what was happenings. Below is her response. I followed up to Ann’s response and confirmed that it is still the plan to have it bundled with JMBA at no additional cost.

Joe Wible

Hopkins Marine Station
Stanford University

_____________________________________

Dear Dr Wible,

Due to protracted negotiations between the trustees and publishers this e-journal has been delayed until later this year. It has also been renamed ‘Marine Biodiversity Records’ and will be online from CUP later in 2008. It should be announced on the CUP website later. I am sorry for the delay which was beyond my control.

All the best

Ann Pulsford

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The State of Coral Reef Ecosystems of the United States and Pacific Freely Associated States: 2008 Now Available

NOAA’s The State of Coral Reef Ecosystems of the United States and Pacific Freely Associated States: 2008 is now available. This report is the third in a series of status reports assessing the condition of coral reef ecosystems in 15 locations ranging from the U.S. Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico to the western Pacific. The document utilizes the results of coral reef monitoring programs and the contributions of over 270 coral reef scientists and managers to assess the condition of the nation’s coral reefs and associated ecosystems, nearly half of which are now considered to be in “poor” or “fair” condition. The report also describes the impacts of 13 major threats in each location while offering recommendations for on-the-ground conservation actions.

In an effort to make this information as widely available as possible, the materials are provided to the public as PDF files available via free Internet downloads at http://ccma.nos.noaa.gov/stateofthereefs. You can also request a free print or CD copy of the report by emailing CoralReport2008@noaa.gov.

Posted by Janet Webster for Alicia Clarke, NOA

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In July of each year, I collate and summarize the resource sharing statistics from the IAMSLIC Distributed Library project. 2007/08 represents the sixth complete year of the resource sharing program. In contrast to last year when a substantial increase in the overall volume of interlibrary borrowing requests took place, the past year seems to indicate stability and modest growth. A total of 4479 requests were submitted during 2007/08, representing a 15% increase over the level of activity of the previous year. A total of 18,857 requests have been submitted via the system since its inception in 2002.

The resource sharing program continues to be broadly international in scope, with 75 different IAMSLIC lending libraries in 23 countries receiving borrowing requests from 115 IAMSLIC libraries in 41 countries, very similar to last year’s numbers. 39 (52%) of those 75 lending libraries are in the United States and they received 59.3% of the total requests. Mexico, Australia, Canada and Germany collectively received 33.2% of the borrowing requests, with the remainder spread among 18 other countries.

The Hatfield Marine Science Center of Oregon State University (U.S.) was the top lending library for the fifth time in the six-year life of the program, followed by the Bedford Institute of Oceanography (Canada), the University of Hawaii (U.S.), the Alfred Wegener Institut in Bremerhaven (Germany), the CSIRO Marine Research Library (Australia), and the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science Library (U.S.).

There were no significant shifts from the past year in the proportions of lending and borrowing across the Regional Groups. The Latin American region continues to make active use of the resource sharing program while contributing a substantial amount of lending in return, including an increasing percentage of requests filled within the region. EURASLIC still conducts much of its regional interlibrary loan activity via its discussion list, so the number of transactions via the Distributed Library does not reflect the full volume of resource sharing in the region. The volume of activity remains low in Africa and moderate in the Pacific region.

The complete set of data is available on the Distributed Library website via the Resource Sharing Statistics link at http://library.csumb.edu/iamslic/ill/. It includes a spreadsheet for each year that offers charts and additional analysis of lending and borrowing patterns. I encourage you to look at the 2007/08 numbers and will be glad to answer any questions you may have about the data.

Steve Watkins
California State University, Monterey Bay, Library
steve_watkins@csumb.edu

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Thursday, 17 July 2008, Mombasa, Kenya.

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