LibraryLaw Blog

Interview with Newton Minow on the National Center for Learning Science and Technology Trust Fund

Mary Minow:  Tell us how the idea for the National Center for Learning Science and Technology Trust Fund (formerly known as the Digital Opportuntiy Investment Trust, or DO IT) began.

Newton Minow:  Years ago, several large foundations approached Larry Grossman and me to examine the opportunities presented by the new digital technologies, with the idea of doing good in education. Larry and I spent a year and wrote a book with an idea, called The Digital Promise.

Mary Minow: What is the idea, in a nutshell?

Newton Minow:  The original idea relates back to a concept from over 150 years ago, when the [Morrill] Land Grant College Act was signed by President Lincoln during the Civil War.  It set aside proceeds from federal funds to establish land grant colleges.  We wanted to take part of the money available from public auctions of the airwaves which total over $20 billion, and  put it into education.

Mary Minow:  But the bill doesn’t mention taking funds from the auctions of airwaves.

Newton Minow:  No. Apparently Congress had already spent the money before it was received.

Mary Minow: I didn’t know that.

Newton Minow: We didn’t either. Apparently they use a system called “scoring” which means they’ve already counted that money in their budget.  If you did that in private life, you’d go to jail

Mary Minow: So what’s the source of the money then?

Newton Minow:  It’s the normal federal appropriations process.  This bill sets up the National Center for Learning Science and Technology Trust Fund, with a board to oversee the distribution of funds to not for profits.

Mary Minow: How did you get to this point in the legislation?

Newton Minow:  We had enormous help from librarians, educational institutions and other not for profits who care about how we can use new technology for education in our country.

Mary Minow: What can we do now to support the plan?

Newton Minow: Let your senators know.

Big Money for digitization projects one big step forward

Digital Promise Legislation Passes the House of Representatives

Legislation embracing the Digital Promise proposal to establish the National Center for Learning Science and Technology Trust Fund as a pilot program (originally labeled “DO IT”, the Digital Opportunity Investment Trust) was passed by the House of Representatives by a wide margin on Thursday evening, February 7.

The proposal, which establishes the National Center for Learning Science and Technology (originally called DOIT) as an independent 501(c)(3) corporation within the Department of Education, was placed into H.R. 4137, the College Opportunity and Affordability Act, and passed by the House of Representatives on Feb. 7th! 

The pilot program will have a nine person Board of Directors that will administer a trust fund for precompetitive basic and applied research to help transform education, skills training and lifelong learning for the digital age.  It will assess and research prototypes for innovative digital learning and information technologies; support pilot testing and evaluation, encourage their widespread adoption and use, and introduce digital media education programs for parents, teachers, and children to build technology literacy.  To carry out its activities the Center will award contracts and grants to colleges and universities, museums, libraries, public broadcasting entities and similar nonprofit organizations and public institutions, as well as to for-profit organizations.

Thank yous are in order to Congressmen John Yarmuth of Kentucky, as well as Congressmen Regula, Kennedy, Markey, Pickering, Boucher, Markey, Chandler, Gordon, Eshoo, Sensenbrenner, Lofgren, Lipinski, Courtney, Schakowsky, Shays and many others. 

The House bill will now go to conference with the Senate, where many members have indicated their strong support.

         

For more information or to view the language of the legislation, see www.digitalpromise.org

Google Book Search - has our Library Law book

I just discovered that Google Book Search has the library law book I coauthored with Tomas Lipinski The Library's Legal Answer Book is on "limited preview" with permisison from the publisher, ALA Editions.   I like it - it give some free pages and shows people easily how they can buy it or find in a bricks and mortar library.

OCA contract analysis...

I promised in my post on the Open Content Alliance/Boston Public Library consortium agreement to post some comments on it.  Here they are.

First, there is no question that the agreement is one of the most open, if not the most open, digitization agreements yet released.  I particularly like that there are almost no restrictions on the use that the IA can make of the scans, and no restrictions on the use that individuals and groups other than the IA can make.  Still, there are a number of interesting elements in the agreement.

OCA / BLC agreement available!

It didn't take Rick Prelinger from the Internet Archives long to respond to my musings yesterday about the availability of the Open Content Alliance / Boston Public Library arrangements.  A copy of the agreement has been posted.  Thanks, Rick!

There are some interesting things in the agreement, which I will discuss at a later date.

How open is the Open Content Alliance?

I'm in Oxford right now, working on a manual on copyright and digitization for cultural heritage institutions.  One of the advantages of being in a different country is that you get to read different newspapers, and things that you may have skimmed over at home leap out at you.

That happened to me as I was reading last Sunday's London Times.  There was an article on the rather remarkable Espresso Book Machine: a self-contained print-on-demand system.  Two things struck me in the article: first, that they were in negotiations with a major English bookseller to house the machines, and second, that they would be providing Open Content Alliance (OCA) digitized books for printing and sale.

Digital ILL and the Open Library

So Peter Brantley over on the O'Reilly blog has an interesting reaction to yesterday's New York Times article on the latest rumblings from the Open Library/Open Content Alliance/Internet Archive people (OL for short).  Peter's post is full of high ideals - and is one of the scariest things I have read in a long time.  At least the way Peter describes it, the actions of the OL could threaten all ILL. 

Thank you, Mike Honda and Anna Eshoo! Digital Promise is taking off - need letters of support now

Let's hear it for the SF Bay Area representatives!  Mike Honda (D-CA) and Anna Eshoo (D-CA) are co-sponsors of legislation to create a Trust for digital education, my father and Larry Grossman's vision of the Digital Promise. The official title of the bill (H.R. 3631) is the "Revolutionizing Education Through Digital Investment Act of 2007".

The bill was introduced Sept. 20th by Congressmen Yarmuth (D-KY) and Regula (R-OH) along with Congressmen Kennedy (D-RI), Markey (D-MA), Honda (D-CA), to create a Trust Fund for digital projects. Others who have joined as cosponsors include Boucher (VA), Chandler (KY), Gordon (TN), and Sensenbrenner (WI). If this list includes your representative, thank him or her. If not, please ask your representative to join as a cosponsor.

This could really help libraries. The bill would create a Digital Trust to provide financing for research, development, and demonstration of advanced information technologies for lifelong learning...similar to the National Science Foundation model. Proposals for grants and contracts would generally be evaluated by peer review, as in the NSF grants.

The grants would go towards research (basic and applied), development and demonstrations of innovative digital learning and assessment, plus evaluation of the systems and programs to encourage widespread adoption. 

Money would be awarded to libraries, museums, colleges and universities, public boradcasting entities and similar nonprofits - with or without private partners.

Public domain  Here's an especially good provision --  if the majority of funding for a project comes from this Trust, the materials resulting (including research and development materials) must be freely available to the general public in a timely manner.  There is an exemption, though, if the Board determines that the public will benefit significantly by the materials not being made available.  Hopefully, that would rarely occur.

Digital Commonwealth conference October 25 - Worcester MA

Sign-ups are now open for the Digital Commonwealth conference.

I'll be speaking on copyright. Click here to see the whole program: http://www.nmrls.org/digitalcommonwealth/Digital_Commonwealth_Conference.htm

Second Annual Digital Library Conference and Vendor Fair, Hogan Center, College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, Massachusetts, October 25, 2007

May I Digitize this Photo? Go With the Flow
When may we digitize a photograph, diary, letter? When is an old photo in the public domain? If it’s not, is there still a way we can scan it legally? What disclaimers should we use? This talk uses an easy to follow flow chart to help make sense of complicated questions.

Speaker: Mary Minow, Library Law Consultant

The Digital Commonwealth: the Bridge to Library 2.0
Library 2.0 projects have the potential of transforming library staff and programs, and engaging patrons in new levels of involvement in their community and library. Building the Digital Commonwealth will allow libraries to implement ideas and technologies associated with Library 2.0 and identify individuals who can help them manage the transition to this new technology. What’s the downside? We’ll talk about that too!

Speaker: Marshall Keys, Library Consultant, MDA Consulting

Breakout sessions:

Virtual Archives: Preparing to Create a Digital Collection / Gregor Trinkaus-Randall, Preservation Specialist at the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners

Case Study: Statewide Digital Project, Connecticut History Online / Kendall Wiggin, Connecticut State Librarian

The Future of the Past: Digital Libraries in the Age of Social Software/ Elizabeth Thomsen, Services Manager for NOBLE, the North of Boston Library Exchange

How do they do it? Displaying Digital Images on the Web / Nancy Heywood, Digital Projects Coordinator, Massachusetts Historical Society

Scanning 101 / Scott Kehoe, Technology Consultant, Northeastern Massachusetts Regional Library System

Case Study: Museum Imaging Workflow / David Mathews, Manager, Imaging Studio, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

New Trends for a Traditional Subject: Primary Sources and the World Wide Web in Teacher Training and K-12 Curriculum Support / Jayne Gordon, Director of Education and Public Programs, Massachusetts Historical Society and Kathleen Barker, Education Coordinator, Massachusetts Historical Society

Building Repositories: Three Perspectives / Ann Devenish, MBLWHOI Library, Woods Hole, MA; Michael Bennett, Access Services Supervisor, CW/MARS; Mark Caprio, Digital Repository Program Manager, Boston College

Metadata Considerations for Digital Collections / Amy Benson, Program Director, Digital Services, NELINET, Inc.

Case Studies in Digital Collaboration: Sudbury’s Goodnow Library and Town Departments and the Topsfield Historical Society and Town Library / Bill Talentino, Director, Goodnow Library, Sudbury; Laura Scott Lowell, Goodnow Library, Sudbury; Bill Whiting, Topsfield Historical Society; and Jackie White, Director, Topsfield Town Library.

Picture This! (But Don’t Forget the Context) /  Ronald A. Gagnon, Executive Director, North of Boston Library Exchange

Internet Archive officially a library

According to a posting in the Internet Archive forum, the state of California has officially designated the Internet Archive to be a library.  They link to a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article for more information.

Perhaps Mary can comment on the process necessary to be designated a library in California.  The action is interesting, regardless.  One of the topics covered in the March 2006 roundtables of the Section 108 Study Group was whether purely virtual libraries should be able to take advantage of the Section 108 exemptions.  (Under current law they most likely would not be eligibile.)  California's action seems to be a recognition that how we define a library is changing.