Veena exponent Jayanthi Kumaresh recalls how she and violinist Kala Ramnath, along with European musicians, explored the beauty of Baroque music

Full Schedule
Proceedings

Best quote: Librarians are like Mr. Paperclip from MS Office - we pop up when you least expect it and try to offer to you help...

This conference focused on the science library's role in supporting e-science and integrating into research collaborations and science departments. There was a mixture of speakers: government, library and institute directors, and a few librarians. The presentations were a mixture of big picture descriptions and some concrete examples. I felt like there wasn't as much hard solutions that we could take back to the library and implement, but perhaps just educating the library community on how radically different e-science is changing the research landscape is the necessary first step.

I've included the highlights from my session notes below (let me know if you'd like the see my full notes in gory detail). Check out the proceedings link above for powerpoint and document files for most of the speakers.

As a side note, our poster about GatorScholar was well-received with many people already aware of the project from either Val's USAIN presentations, the SLA poster, or from hearing about Cornell's project. Medha Devare was one of the panel reactors and she mentioned our collaboration in her presentation. Most of the poster visitors seemed very interested in starting their own version and perhaps at some point we'll have a network of databases.

Thursday

E-Science: Trends, Transformations & Responses

Convener and Moderator: Wendy Lougee, University of Minnesota
Speaker: Chris Greer, Director, National Coordination Office

2. A Case Study in E-Science: Building Ecological Informatics Solutions for Multi-Decadal Research

William Michener, Research Professor (Biology) and Associate Director, Long-Term Ecological Research Network Office, University of New Mexico


3. Rick Luce, Vice Provost and Director of University Libraries, Emory University Libraries

"Making a Quantum Leap to eResearch Support: a new world of opportunities and challenges for research libraries"


Wendy Lougee

Pitfalls: not to fall back on traditional roles, currently we don't respond to multi-institutional collaborations, our boundaries stop with the institution

We need to understand scientists' workflows, need to identify strategies for embedding librarians into project teams. We need to think about core expertise of librarians, reimaging roles of librarians

What do we do to build this collaborative action? We need to think outside the box.

Data Curation: Issues and Challenges

Convener and Moderator: James Mullins, Dean of Libraries, Purdue University

• Liz Lyon, Director, UKOLN

Transition or Transform? Repositiioning the Library for the Petabyte Era

How can libraries work with science (in a very general sense)?

1. Transition or Transform? Need to become embedded and integrated into team science. Many different models of engagement

Geosciences pilot where the library worked with the Geological department to curate their datasets (Edinborough):
Found: Time needed is longer than anticipated, inventory doesn't have to be comprehensive, little documentation exists
Outcomes: positive, requirement for researcher and auditor training, need to develop a data policy

2. Lots of opportunities of action: leadership by senior managers, faculty coordination, advocacy & tranining, data documentation best practices

People and Skills: there are not enough specialised data librarians. In UK 5 data librarians. Need to bring diverse communities together - facilitate cooperation between organizations and individuals.

Open science: new range of areas where results are being put onto the web (GalaxyZoo eg.) Librarians need to be aware of implications.

3. Need multidisciplinary teams and people in library, huge skill shortage, need to find core data skills and integrate it into the LIS curriculum. Recruit different people to the LIS team, rebrand the LIS career. Go from librarianship to Informatics.

• Fran Berman, Director of the San Diego Supercomputer Center, UC San Diego, and Co-chair Blue Ribbon Task Force on Sustainable Digital Preservation and Access

"Research and Data"

Researchers are detectives, shows different major questions (SAF, Brown Dwarfs, bridge stress, Income dynamics over 40 years, Disease spread-Protein Data Bank) - key collections all over.

CI Support: all these issues are crucial. researchers want a easy to use set of tools to make the most of their data.

She finds different preservation profiles: timescale, datascale, well-tended to poor, level of policy restrictions, planned vs. ad hoc approach

Researchers focused on new projects, customization of solutions to problems, collaboration

Researchers need help: developing management, preservation and use environments, proper curation and annotation, navigating policy, regulation, IP, sustainability

Questions about preservation: what should we save and who should pay for it? Just saving everything isn't an option. 2007 was the crossover year - digital data exceeded the amount of available storage. What do we want to save? Who is we?
Society: official and historically valuable data, Fed agency or inst normally takes part.
Research community: PDB, NVO.
Me: medical record, financial data, digital photos - real commercial market for preservation solutions.

What do we have to save?
private sector: HIPAA, Sarbanes-Oxley,
OMB regulations for fed funded research data (3 years, not always easy to do).

Economics: many costs associated with preservation. Maintenance upkeep, software, utilities, space, networking, security, etc.

UCSD forged partnership with library. Trying to create a preservation grid with formal policies, nationwide grid with other institutions.

Panel Responders:

• Sayeed Choudhury, Associate Dean of University Libraries and Hodson Director of the Digital Research and Curation Center, Johns Hopkins University

Data Curation Issues and Challenges:

It makes sense to help scientists deal with public and higher levels of data, not the raw data.

Considerations: need to work within their systems, consider gateways for systems as part of infrastructure development (think about railroad gauge), focus on both human and tech components of infrastructure, human interoperability is more difficult than tech interoperability, trust is key!

Questions: What about the cloud or the crowd? Can Flickr help us with data curation? What are the fundamental differences between data and collections? Human readable vs. machine readable? How do we transfer principles into new practices? What are we trying to sustain? Data? Scholarship? Our organizations?


Supporting Virtual Orgs

• Thomas A. Finholt, Director, Collaboratory for Research on Electronic Work (CREW) and Research Professor & Associate Dean for Research and Innovation, School of Information, University of Michigan

Changing nature of geographically-distributed collaboration:

history: transition in terms of distributed work. Much of what came before (collaboratory, video conf) had a precedent but new emerging has no precedent (crowdsourcing, VO's), no traditional context leaves us a bit adrift.

Lesson 1: anticipate cultural differences.
Domain scientists: characteristics: power distance (bias toward seniority, hierarchical), individualist(solo PI, individual genius), masculine(adversial and competitive), uncertainty avoidance
CI developers: power distance (bias toward talent, egalitarian), collectivist(project model), masculine, embrace risk

Lesson 2: plan for first contact.

It can be tough to recognize successful innovations: first efforts are often awkward hybrids



Crowdsourcing: idea that we send out challenges and solutions come to us (ex. Innocentive website, Games with a Purpose). We don't know who is going to do the work, effort is contributed voluntarily -> incentives are important to motivate work

Delegation of organizational work: people can count on organizations to do some of the basic policy work. Much attention has focused on technology and processes to support social ties, alternative course is the use of technology to supplant social ties - > think of this as organizing without the work of organizing, questions of who to trust, who pays, permitted to use the resources are managed by middleware.

Group work is an inevitable fact of org life.

• Medha Devare, Life Sciences and Bioinformatics Librarian, Mann Library, Cornell University

Idea of Virtual Organization: boundary crossing, pooling of competencies, participants or activities geographically separated, fluid, flat structure, participant equality

Library contributions: technology choices, tools; tech support/guidance; subject expertise; understanding of research landscape; vision - user needs of the future?

Examples of library support: VIVO, DataStar (supports data-sharing among researchers)

DataStar: Data Staging Repository: supports data sharing, esp during research process, promotes publishing or archiving to discipline specific data centers and/or to Cornell's DR. Nascent stage

Reinventing the library? Librarians as middle-ware to facilitate process of connecting and creating coherence across disciplines - both VIVO and DataStar aid this.

Hope that both tools seamlessly interact with each other.


D. Scott Brandt, Associate Dean for Research, Purdue University Library

Tries to embed librarians in research teams. We have to redefine what we do, collect.

Images from Day 3 of the second Test between India and New Zealand at the Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium in Pune on Saturday.

Images from Day 2 of the 3rd Test played between India and New Zealand, in Mumbai, on Saturday.

Countries come to Baku for the main United Nations forum for climate diplomacy after new warnings that 2024 is on track to break temperature records, adding urgency to a fractious debate over climate funding.

Navigating the challenges of autism in Indian schools: parents share experiences and experts emphasize the need for inclusive education.

Trump has promised to again remove the U.S., the world’s biggest historic greenhouse gas emitter, from international climate cooperation

Trump is a climate change denier who has promised to increase fossil fuel production and withdraw the US from the Paris climate deal, among other worrying pledges.

“If we win Pennsylvania, we will win the whole thing,” Trump said.

The conversation stretched long enough that Trump ended up hours late for a rally in swing-state Michigan, where hundreds of supporters trickled out of the venue as temperatures dropped while waiting for him to arrive

He further underscored the importance of the Indian-American vote in the upcoming US Presidential elections, while noting the growing support for Kamala Harris in the crucial swing state of Michigan

The contest, marked by significant political events, including assassination attempts on Trump and President Biden’s unexpected withdrawal, sees both candidates neck-and-neck in several key swing states.

Polls have closed in key swing states of Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Michigan

Trump wins both North Carolina and Georgia, while holding a more tentative advantage across Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Arizona

Pennsylvania was carried by Trump when he first won the White House in 2016 and then flipped back to Democrats in 2020. Trump also took Georgia, which had voted for Democrats four years ago

People hope Trump will address jobs, economy issues; Trump has vowed to crackdown on illegal immigration

‘Let’s work for the betterment of our people and to promote global peace, stability and prosperity,’ Modi says in a post on X

Similarly, Musk is keen to launch his satellite broadband services firm Starlink in India and has been asking for lower entry barriers

Analysts and officials believe that the US under Trump will continue a years-long effort to cultivate India as a strategic partner against a more assertive Beijing, an effort that has won India big new investments from US companies like Apple Inc

Donald Trump will return to the White House accompanied by a crew of longtime friends and aides as well as newfound, splashy allies

‘The two men discussed the goal of peace on the European continent’

Delegates gathering in Baku are hoping to resolve the summit's top agenda item – a deal for up to $1 trillion in annual climate finance for developing countries

Japanese government officials are trying to arrange a meeting for him with Trump toward the end of the trip, potentially during a stopover in the US before Ishiba returns to Japan

We are born in debt and die in debt both financial and social

Here is a select list of stories to start the day

Elon Musk's Starlink and global peers like Amazon's Project Kuiper back an administrative allocation of spectrum for satellite broadband

The first Article II Judge of South Asian origin, Mr. Thapar was nominated to this position by the former Republican president George W Bush.

Mr. Farage (52), later posted a picture on Facebook and Twitter of him with Mr. Trump, who gives a thumbs-up for the camera.

Although Mr. Giuliani has little foreign policy experience, the official said there was no real competition for the job as the nation’s top diplomat.

"Our work will provide a strong foundation for the new transition team leadership as they move into the post-election phase, which naturally is incorporating the campaign team in New York who drove President-elect Trump to an incredible victory last Tuesday," Mr. Rogers said.

"This is the best thing that could have happened to the Hindus. Mr. Trump is committed to fighting Islamic terrorism to its end," Mr. Kumar told The Hindu.

This has fuelled speculation of a growing axis spurred by new ties between Moscow & Islamabad

"We strongly urge you to rescind this appointment immediately and build a diverse White House staff who are committed to the core American values of inclusiveness, diversity and tolerance," the letter delivered to the Trump said.

Earlier in the day, a close aide of Mr. Trump from South Carolina said that Ms. Haley was being considered for a Cabinet position, including that of the Secretary of State.

"We look forward to working with the Trump administration, with all of the members of the Trump administration, including Steve Bannon, and making the US—Israel alliance stronger than ever," Mr. Dermer said in response to a question.

The world singled us out as narrow-minded. But as people from the country that is the grandfather of democracy and human rights elected Donald Trump, who is similar to me in prioritizing nationalism, there will be less finger-pointing from the international community.

A senior Trump official said the job of national security adviser has been offered to retired Lieutenant General Michael Flynn.

This was Mr. Trump’s first meeting with a foreign leader after he was voted to power in one of the most surprising results of a US presidential election held on November 8.

Chinese state media has warned Mr. Trump against isolationism and interventionism, calling instead for the United States to actively work with China to maintain the international status quo.

"We have to distinguish between the rhetoric that takes place within presidential campaigns and the real and actual administration of a country after the inauguration," he said.

Sees in his choice of Jeff Sessions and Bannon a white supremacist agenda that goes against U.S. ethos.

They fear that the incoming administration will push a divisive agenda; Obama says won’t comment on appointments.

"We had a far-reaching conversation with regards to the various theaters in the world where there are interests of the United States of real significance," Mr. Romney told reporters.

Acting Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe and two others were proposed by lawmakers as the three candidates for the July 20 Presidential election

The numbers demonstrate that the U.S. also protects specific products of its economy with high tariffs, GTRI said in a report.

We also analyse the IMF’s report on world economy as well as their forecast for India.

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Forex traders said the rupee is likely to remain under pressure unless there is a softening in the dollar index or a slowdown in foreign fund outflows