The OPEN GOVERNMENT GUIDE

The OPEN GOVERNMENT GUIDE (previously published as Tapping Officials' Secrets) is published by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press to "open government law and practice in each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia." [Introd.] http://www.rcfp.org/ogg/ Covers whether and which records and meetings are open.

Allows comparison of 2 or more states. Select from the drop down menu to compare procedures or types of records such as electronic (email, text, social media postings), bank records, collective bargaining negotiations and documents, gun permits, hospital reports, personnel records, police and prison records, real estate transactions, school and university records and vital statistics, among others. Response can be one word (yes, no, open) or a quote from the state statute or a legal case.

Can also search by keyword, eg. adoption or divorce.


Source:
Linda Oppenheim
Industrial Relations Librarian
New Jersey Documents Librarian
Princeton University

US State department releases July-December, 2010 International Religious Freedom Report on September 13, 2011

Report on Religious Freedoms in various countries was released by the US Department of State on September 13, 2011.


The Caucasus and Central Asian Countries section can be found below.

Armenia
Azerbaijan
Georgia
Kazakhstan
Kyrgyzstan
Tajikistan
Turkmenistan
Uzbekistan

[Princeton]A symposium on Orthodox history in America, Pilgrims and Pioneer

Friday, September 30, 2011
6:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Aaron Burr Hall 219, Princeton University
Saturday, October 1, 2011
8:00 a.m. to 4:15 p.m.
Stuart Hall, Princeton Theological Seminary

This symposium will examine some of the people and movements that contributed to the growth of Orthodox Christianity in 20th century America. We will pay special attention to the role of missionaries, immigration and conversion, the emergence of Orthodox theological scholarship in English, and Orthodox engagement in American civic and political life.

Want to come? Please click here to register.
Featured Speakers
Fr. Demetrios J. Constantelos

Fr. Demetrios J. Constantelos, Ph.D., D.D., is a retired presbyter of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, and the Charles Cooper Townsend Sr. Professor Emeritus of History and Religious Studies, and Distinguished Research Scholar in Residence at the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, Pomona, N.J. He is the author of numerous scholarly publications and the series editor of the collected works of Archbishop Iakovos Koukouzis, whose legacy of leadership in the public sphere Fr. Demetrios will discuss in his lecture.

Scott M. Kenworthy
Scott M. Kenworthy, Ph.D., is associate professor of comparative religion at Miami University, Ohio. He is the author of The Heart of Russia: Trinity-Sergius, Monasticism and Society After 1825 (Oxford University Press, 2010), as well as several book chapters and articles in peer-reviewed journals, mainly focusing on Russian and Russian American history. His lecture will examine the life and legacy of St. Tikhon Bellavin.

Fr. Oliver Herbel
Fr. Oliver Herbel, Ph.D., is the executive director of the Society for Orthodox Christian History in the Americas (SOCHA). In addition to a forthcoming book on St. Sarapion of Thmuis, Fr. Oliver has published several articles in peer-reviewed journals, mainly focused on American Orthodox history. He is currently editing his dissertation under the new title Creative Converts: How Intra-Christian Converts to Orthodoxy Imagine Their Conversions. Fr. Oliver's lecture will focus on several Greek clergymen who served in the early Russian Mission.


Paul Ladouceur

Paul Ladouceur, DPhil, teaches Orthodox theology and spirituality at Université de Sherbrooke (Québec, Canada) and Trinity College, University of Toronto. He has published a number of articles on modern Orthodox spiritual figures, mostly in French. His lecture will examine the contributions of Fathers Georges Florovsky, Alexander Schmemann and John Meyendorff to Orthodoxy in North America and beyond.

Other Speakers

A list of the short papers that will be delivered in the concurrent sessions is available here. The schedule is here
Registration

The conversation and reception on Friday night is free and open to the public. Registration is required to attend Saturday's proceedings. Please click here for registration information.

The event is organized by the Society for Orthodox Christian History in the Americas (SOCHA), the School of Christian Vocation and Mission at Princeton Theological Seminary, and the Fr. Georges Florovsky Orthodox Christian Theological Society at Princeton University. It is made possible by the generous support of the Program in American Studies, the Center for the Study of Religion, and the Office of Religious Life, all three at Princeton University, and the Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius (Oxford, England).

"The Deepening of the Russian Revolution, 1917"

The Deepening of the Russian Revolution, 1917" to showcase both primary and secondary sites associated with the February and October Revolutions:
http://web.mit.edu/russia1917/


Self-description: "This project aims to tap into the extraordinary wealth of primary sources now available in print and on the Internet. Our hope is to show viewers some of the immense complexity of actors and issues being mobilized over this eight-month period from February to October 1917. By creating an innovative digital timeline, we hope to showcase three kinds of sources: primary sources from the time, secondary analyses written by historians, and student papers commenting on one or more themes that they have gleaned from reading primary sources. Viewers have an opportunity to read this site across time (what historians call diachronically) or across social groups (historians call this a synchronic reading). This kind of interconnection among sources is one we hope will serve as a model for other pedagogical innovations in the new field of Digital Humanities."



Source:
Elizabeth Wood
Professor, Russian and Soviet History, M.I.T.

Princeton ties Harvard for #1 Spot: in 2012 ! Yay!

Go Tigers!!!!! Let us not be scared of the bears!


Colleagues, and Readers of this blog!


I wanted to share the following news as a matter of pride with all of you. As you know, I have moved to Princeton University and taken up here a post as a librarian for Slavic, Eastern European and Eurasian Studies (that includes Central Asia). After 22 years of life in Los Angeles and almost 10 years of service at UCLA, I was questioning my own decision to move. However, epiphany does happen sometimes very slowly. And I am writing this note not as a grateful immigrant whose narrative is informed by the opportunities for expression in this society, but as a collection development librarian who only reams of working at a Ivy!


Of course, I am a product of public education and admire UCLA very much. I have come to love my Alma mater over a period of long 22 years, when I took my first course during the summer out there in LA.




http://www.inquisitr.com/141280/2012-college-rankings-released-harvard-and-princeton-tie-at-the-top/



http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities

British Geological Survey Publishes 2011 Risk List Report

An interesting report of relative risk of critical chemical elements was published and released by the British Geological Survey recently. Although not directly related to Slavic Studies Librarianship, I though it might be interesting to bring it to the attention of my readers for several reasons. First, the report also tells us about the leading producer countries of these elements and Russia is one of them. The report can be found here.



The report's self-description is as follows, "The risk list gives a quick indication of the relative risk in 2011 to the supply of the chemical elements or element groups which we need to maintain our economy and lifestyle. The position of an element on this list is determined by a number of factors which might impact on supply. These include the abundance of elements in the Earth's crust, the location of current production and reserves, and the political stability of those locations."


The full-text can be downloaded here.

CALL FOR PRESENTATIONS: RUSA-ALA 2012

The deadline for submissions is January, 2, 2012.
CALL FOR PRESENTATIONS
The Research and Statistics Committee of the Reference Services Section of RUSA invites the submission of research projects for presentation at the 18th Reference Research Forum at the 2012 American Library Association Annual Conference in Anaheim, CA.
The Reference Research Forum continues to be one of the most popular and valuable programs during the ALA Annual Conference, where attendees can learn about notable research projects conducted in the broad area of reference services such as user behavior, electronic services, reference effectiveness and assessment, and organizational structure and personnel. All researchers, including reference practitioners from all types of libraries, library school faculty and students, and other interested individuals, are encouraged to submit a proposal.
For examples of projects presented at past Forums, please see the Committee’s website:
http://tinyurl.com/rssresearchstatistics
The Committee employs a blind review process to select three projects for 20 minute presentations, followed by open discussion. Winning submissions must be presented in person at the Forum in Anaheim, CA.
Criteria for selection:
• Quality and creativity of the research design and methodologies;
• Significance of the study for improving the quality of reference service;
• Potential for research to fill a gap in reference knowledge or to build on previous studies;
• Research projects may be in-progress or completed;
• Previously published research or research accepted for publication will not be accepted
Proposals are due by Monday, January 2, 2012. Notification of acceptance will be made by Monday, February 6, 2012. The submission must not exceed two pages. Please include:
1. A cover sheet including your name(s), title(s), institutional affiliation(s), mailing address(es), fax number(s) and email address(es).
2. The second page should NOT show your name, any personal information, or the name of your institution. Instead, it must include:
a. Title of the project;
b. Explicit statement of the research problem;
c. Description of the research design and methodologies used, and preliminary findings if any;
d. Brief discussion of the unique contribution, potential impact, and significance of the research

Please send submissions by email to:
Qiana Johnson
Chair, RUSA RSS Research and Statistics Committee
q-johnson@northwestern.edu

Examining Our Past: Historical Map Collection Now Online

Nearly 90,000 high resolution scans of the more than 200,000 historical USGS topographic maps, some dating as far back as 1884, are now available on-line from the US Geological Survey. The Historical Topographic Map Collection includes published U.S. topographic maps of all scales and editions, and are offered as a geo-referenced digital download or as a printed copy from the USGS Store.

"I applaud your continuing effort to digitize the entire set of USGS quadrangle maps and we anxiously await the completion of the project. This effort is of great consequence for the research community" said Dr. John R. Hébert Chief, Geography and Map Division, Library of Congress. Not all of the historical collection resides in any one location or in any one catalog. In a partnership with the Library of Congress and other map depositories, the USGS will build a complete master catalog and provide access to maps that may be missing from any one collection.

Historical maps are an important national resource as they provide the long-term record and documentation of the natural, physical and cultural landscape. The history documented by this collection and the analysis of distribution and spatial patterns is invaluable throughout the sciences and non-science disciplines. Genealogists, historians, anthropologists, archeologists and others use this collection for research as well as for a framework on which a myriad of information can be presented in relation to the landscape. For more than 130 years, the USGS topographic mapping program has accurately portrayed the complex geography of our nation through maps using the lithographic printing process. The historical collection contains high resolution scanned images from the USGS legacy series and other sources.

Historical maps are available to the public at no cost in GeoPDF format or as a printed copy for $15 plus a $5 handling charge from the USGS Store .
The electronic maps are georeferenced and can be used in conjunction with the new USGS digital topographic map, the US Topo.

The entire historical collection is being loaded into the USGS Store at a rapid pace. Check the website for continuous updates:
http://nationalmap.gov/historical

The project is part of the USGS National Geospatial Program (NGP) continuing efforts to support the mapping and location-based data needs of the Nation.
Source:
Richard Huffine, Director
USGS Libraries Program
Core Science Systems (MS 807)
U.S. Geological Survey
12201 Sunrise Valley Drive, Reston, VA 20192 Tel 703-648-7182
Email: rhuffine@usgs.gov

LC Digitizes album that documents Russian Revolution of 1917

Scans of a 2006 gift to the Library of Congress, a photo album.
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/search/?q="2010%3A041"&sp=1&st=gallery
Album description, http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2010645610/ (this record oddly makes it appear the item isn't digitized)

"Photographs document the Russian Revolution in Moscow, Petrograd (St. Petersburg), Vologda, Vereshchagina, and Novo Nikolaevsk. Photographs document return trip through Japan, China and Korea. Russian photographs taken between November 20, 1917 and March 1918."
Source:
Michael Neubert
Supervisory Digital Projects Specialist
Office phone 202 707 3706

A Letter from JSTOR about Open Access to its content

Dear Library and Publisher Colleagues,
I write to share exciting news: Today, we are making journal content on JSTOR published prior to 1923 in the United States and prior to 1870 elsewhere freely available to the public for reading and downloading. This content includes nearly 500,000 articles from more than 200 journals, representing approximately 6% of the total content on JSTOR.
We are taking this step as part of our continuous effort to provide the widest possible access to content on JSTOR while ensuring the long-term preservation of this important material. To date, we have primarily provided access to people through a growing base of libraries and institutions. In 1995, only ten journals were digitized and available to just a few universities. Today, millions of people from more than 7,000 institutions in 153 countries have access to journals on JSTOR through their universities, colleges, high schools, businesses, research institutions, museums, historical societies, and public libraries.
These figures convey remarkable progress and impact, but there remain many people not affiliated with institutions who are without access to JSTOR. We have taken a variety of steps over the years to serve these users. First, in 1999 we began partnering with publishers and scholarly societies to provide access to their journals to their society members and other individuals through our Individual Access Program. More than 300 journals are accessible to individuals through this program. Second, in 2006 we initiated another program–the Publisher Sales Service–to enable publishers to sell individual articles to the public on the JSTOR platform. There are 762 journals that have articles for sale through this program. Third, in 2009 we began partnering with universities and colleges to offer their alumni access to content on JSTOR. There are 18 institutions in this pilot program today.
About a year ago, we started working on a set of initiatives to test and provide additional forms of access. These initiatives include supporting publishers who wish to test different price points for articles that are part of the Publisher Sales Service; working with publishers to experiment with ways in which individuals may read some articles free of charge; and providing free access for individuals to the early journal content available through JSTOR. We are very excited about the potential for this next wave of efforts. We are confident that they will result in broader access to scholarship in the near term, and enable JSTOR and our publishers to test and develop new models that meet the wider public’s needs in the future.
I hope you share our excitement about today’s announcement. We look forward to continuing to work with you to broaden access to individuals in the future. More information about the Early Journal Content is available, including an FAQ.
On a final note, I realize that some people may speculate that making the Early Journal Content free to the public today is a direct response to widely-publicized events over the summer involving an individual who was indicted for downloading a substantial portion of content from JSTOR, allegedly for the purpose of posting it to file sharing sites. While we had been working on releasing the pre-1923/pre-1870 content before the incident took place, it would be inaccurate to say that these events have had no impact on our planning. We considered whether to delay or accelerate this action, largely out of concern that people might draw incorrect conclusions about our motivations. In the end, we decided to press ahead with our plans to make the Early Journal Content available, which we believe is in the best interest of our library and publisher partners, and students, scholars, and researchers everywhere.
Please feel free to let me know if you have questions.
Sincerely,
Laura Brown
JSTOR Managing Director

CFP: Research Foundations for Understanding Books and Reading in the Digital Age: Text and Beyond

Research Foundations for Understanding Books and Reading in the Digital Age: Text and Beyond
18 November 2011
Kyoto, Japan. Soushi-kan Conference Hall, Ritsumeikan University. In conjunction with the Second International Symposium on Digital Humanities for Japanese Arts and Cultures (DH-JAC2011, 19-20 November 2011; http://tinyurl.com/4yakpa7)

Proposals due 20 September 2011

Digital technology is fundamentally altering the way we relate to writing, reading, and the human record itself. The pace of that change has created a gap between core social/cultural practices that depend on stable reading and writing environments and the new kinds of digital artefacts-electronic books being just one type of many-that must sustain those practices now and into the future.

This one-day gathering explores research foundations pertinent to understanding new practices and emerging media, specifically focusing on work in textual and extra-textual method, in itself and via exemplar, leading toward [1] theorizing the transmission of culture in pre- and post-electronic media, [2] documenting the facets of how people experience information as readers and writers, [3] designing new kinds of interfaces and artifacts that afford new reading abilities, [4] conceptualizing the issues necessary to provide information to these new reading and communicative environments, [5] reflection on interdisciplinary team research strategies pertinent to work in the area, and beyond.

Featured speakers include Neil Fraistat (U Maryland), Kozaburo Hachimura (Ritsumeikan U), and Masahiro Shimoda (U Tokyo), with a special welcome from Mitsuyuki Inaba (Ritsumeikan U).

The gathering is offered in conjunction with the Second International Symposium on Digital Humanities for Japanese Arts and Cultures (DH-JAC2011) (19-20 November 2011; http://tinyurl.com/4yakpa7) and is sponsored by the Japanese Association for Digital Humanities, the Digital Humanities Center for Japanese Arts and Cultures at Ritsumeikan University, the Implementing New Knowledge Environments (INKE) research group, and the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). Earlier gatherings of this group have taken place in conjunction with the Text & Literacy conference (December 2010; sponsored by the National Library of the Netherlands, the Book and Digital Media Studies department of Leiden University, INKE and SSHRC), and at the University of Victoria (October 2009; sponsored by INKE and SSHRC).

We invite paper and poster/demonstration proposals that address these and other issues pertinent to research in the area. Proposals should contain a title, an abstract (of approximately 250 words) plus list of works cited, and the names, affiliations, and website URLs of presenters; fuller papers will be solicited after acceptance of the proposal. Please send proposals before 20 September 2011 to siemens@uvic.ca.

Call for Papers: Russian Journal of Communication

Special Issue: Russian Interpersonal Communication
What is interpersonal communication? Is it a universal form of communication or does it vary cross-culturally? To broaden the conversation concerning interpersonal communication and culture, the Russian Journal of Communication calls for papers that will advance our understanding of Russian interpersonal communication.
As guest editors for a special issue of RJC to be published in 2012, we welcome the submission of original papers on one of the following themes concerning Russian interpersonal communication: interpersonal communication in Russia or abroad; comparative studies of Russian interpersonal communication and others; interpersonal relationships (relational development, maintenance, and dissolution); face-to-face and mediated interpersonal communication and relationships; interpersonal conflict; language and social interaction; intercultural interpersonal communication; gender, ethnic, and inter-generational differences in interpersonal communication; persuasion and mutual influence in interpersonal communication; communicative competence and interpersonal skills.


Papers addressing Russian interpersonal communication from any theoretical or methodological perspective are encouraged.
Papers should be approximately 30 double-spaced pages including references in APA style. Please see the Journal’s information for authors at http://www.russcomm.ru/eng/rca_projects/rjoc/guidelines.shtml for more information.
Please send your submissions electronically to the issue's co-editors by October 30, 2011:
Olga Leontovich: olgaleo@list.ru
Artemi Romanov: artemi80309@gmail.com
Michelle Scollo: michellescollo@gmail.com
Source:
Artemi Romanov
Associate Professor
Department of Germanic and Slavic
Languages and Literatures
University of Colorado
Boulder, CO 80309-0276
Phone: (303)492-8827, Fax: (303)492-5376

Princeton University Symposium on Sufism and Islam in Central Asia

Princeton University Symposium on Sufism and Islam in Central Asia
October 21-22, 2011

Day One (Friday, October 21):

9:30 am-9:50 am Welcome and Introductions – Muhammad Qasim Zaman (Princeton University), Symposium Chair

9:50 am-10:15 am Opening Address – Devin DeWeese (Indiana University), Symposium Co-Chair

Session I (10:15 am-12:15 pm): Sources and Interpretative Strategies

Shahzad Bashir (Stanford University): “Genre, Narratives, Texts, and Manuscripts: A Heuristic for the Study of Central Asian Sufi Hagiography”

Jo-Ann Gross (The College of New Jersey): “The Biographical Tradition of Muḥammad Bashārā: Islamic Hagiography in Tajikistan”

Maria E. Subtelny (University of Toronto): “The Oeuvre of Ḥusayn Vā‘iẓ Kāshifī as a Source for the Study of Sufism in Early 16th-Century Central Asia”

Discussant: Jamal J. Elias (University of Pennsylvania)

12:30 pm-2:00 pm Lunch Break


Session II (2:00 pm-4:00 pm): Sufi Communities and Sources: Realignments from the Russian to the Post-Soviet Period

Kawahara Yayoi (University of Tokyo): “Walī-khān’s jihād in Marghilan: A Consideration on a Makhdūmzāda Family in the Khanate of Khoqand

Eren Tasar (Washington University in St. Louis): “Sufism on the Soviet Stage: Holy People and Places in Central Asia’s Socio-political Landscape after World War II”

Ashirbek Muminov (Institute of Oriental Studies, Academy of Sciences of Kazakhstan): “Sufi Groups in Contemporary Kazakhstan: Competition and Connections with Kazakh Islamic Society”

Discussant: Zvi Ben-Dor Benite (New York University)


4:00 pm-4:30 pm Coffee Break

4:30 pm-5:00 pm First Day Concluding Remarks and General Discussion
Symposium Moderator, Jo-Ann Gross


Day Two (Saturday, October 22):

Session III (9:30 am-12:00 pm): Sufi Communities: Social, Political, and Economic Perspectives

Florian Schwarz (Austrian Academy of Sciences): “The Sufi and the City: Sufi Communities in 17th-Century Bukhara According to the Thamarāt al-mashāyikh”

Allen Frank (Takoma Park, Maryland) “The Tārīkh-i Barangawī as a Source on Sufi Shaykhs in the Emirate of Bukhara, 1850-1905”

Sugawara Jun (Tokyo University of Foreign Studies): “Mazārs and Waqf Domains in Kāshghar: A Preliminary Approach to their Dimensions and Distribution in the Early 20th Century”

Robert McChesney (New York University): “Keeping it in the Family: Waqf, Wealth Accumulation, and Sufism in Early Modern Afghanistan and Central Asia”

Discussant: Dina LeGall (Lehman College, City University of New York)


12:00 pm-12:15 pm Second Day Concluding Remarks
Moderator, Jo-Ann Gross

12:15 pm-12:45 pm Concluding Remarks and General Discussion
Michael Cook (Princeton University)

12:45 pm-2:00 pm Lunch for Speakers/Participants. End of Symposium.