Volume 124 Issue 52
kansan.com
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
PARKING PROBLEMS
GAMES TAKE SPOTS
IAN CUMMINGS
icummings@kansan.com
LUKE RANKER
LUKE RANKER
lranker@kansan.com
Students with night classes during home basketball games get hit with a double whammy. Not only do they miss the games but some have trouble finding parking while in class.
On game days an influx of out of town fans, or students looking to shorten their walk to the game, make for a shortage of campus parking spots.
Meshaal Khan, a senior from Overland Park, had to park behind Bailey Hall instead of Anschutz Library. Khan said she goes to the library a couple times a week and isn't looking forward to walking farther during the winter.
"It'll be annoying to walk in the snow." she said.
Field supervisor for KU Parking and Transit David Moore doesn't expect the closed lots to cause problems.
Adding to the shortage of parking spots is the fact that KU Parking and Transit reserves several student lots around Allen Fieldhouse for game day parking. These include lots 71 and 72 next to the Burge Union and Allen Fieldhouse as well as lots 125 and 127 between Arrocha and Hogland ballparks. Lot 90 in front of the Ambler Student Recreation Fitness Center is also reserved during games.
"It's pretty much what we've done every year." Moore said. Moore said the Parking and Transit website has information available to help students plan where to park during basketball games.
Gabriela Lemmons, a graduate
in English from Tonganoxie, plans ahead for basketball game parking. She arrived early Tuesday evening to get a parking spot in front of Watson Library. She said she tried
to get there right at 5 p.m., when parking on Jayhawk Boulevard is open.
"I try to park close by," she said.
"I don't want to walk to far by
myself."
She said she doesn't expect to have a problem parking on Jayhawk Boulevard during basketball season.
"It's all about pre-planning," Lemmons said.
SEE PARKING ON PAGE 3
ANDREW JOSEPH
ajoseph@kansan.com
West Virginia University, the newly accepted Big 12 member, filed a lawsuit Monday seeking an immediate separation from the Big East Conference.
As part of the Big East's
As part of the big Easts bylaws, schools are required to pay a $5 million exit fee and are subject to a 27-month waiting period in order to leave the conference. West Virginia's acceptance to the Big 12 was announced Friday, but the Big East made it clear that the school will be held to the waiting period.
"We are disappointed that West Virginia has adopted this strategy and cannot imagine why it believes it does not have to respect and honor the bylaws it agreed to as a member of the Big East," Big East commissioner John Marinatto said in an official statement.
The 14-page suit filed with Mongolia County (W. Va.) Circuit Court requested that the court declare the Big East bylaws invalid because the conference breached its contract by failing to maintain a balance between football and non-football playing members.
In less than two months, the Big East lost Pittsburgh, Syracuse, Texas Christian University and West Virginia to other conferences, putting the Big East's automatic qualifier status in serious ieopardy.
Despite the clear legal hurdles awaiting West Virginia, the school is ready to move forward as a member of the Big 12.
Big 12 officials were in Morgantown, W. Va., on Tuesday to officially welcome West Virginia as the conference's newest member.
Big 12 interim commissioner Chuck Neinas was on hand at the reception and presented West Virginia president James P. Clements with the Big 12 membership agreement, sparking Clements to jokingly declare, "now, it's official."
Neinas praised West Virginia as a flagship research institution that has nationally recognized athletics programs.
STATE
Edited by C.J. Matson
Kansas libraries leading in access to e-books
IAN CUMMINGS
icummings@kansan.com
More e-books are available in libraries this year than ever before, and Kansas libraries are leading an effort to keep them there.
Nationwide, 82 percent of public libraries across the country offered e-books in 2011, up 10 percent from last year, according to a survey published by Library Journal. Academic libraries saw a more modest increase of one percent, with 95 percent in the nation offering e-books.
But with that increase, some libraries have seen the terms of their contracts with publishers change radically, raising the question of
Kansas recently decided to change vendors when prices spiked and the terms of ownership changed in a proposed contract renewal with OverDrive, a national e-book distributor. Jo Budler, the state librarian, balked at those changes and decided to let that contract expire in December. From then on, the state library will contract with 3M for its e-books and with Recorded Books
whether the libraries are purchasing ownership of the books, or merely renting them for the period of the contract. The state library o
Budler
The first problem, according to Budler, was a price increase of 700 percent. The state library currently pays OverDrive $10,800, but that cost would have increased each year under the new contract, reaching $75,000 in the third and final year.
"We've had a contract with OverDrive since 2005 and pricing was pretty steady up until a year ago," Budler said. "There were two things in the renewal that were pretty problematic."
for audio books.
The second problem was that the new contract left ownership of the content with OverDrive. The current contract gives the state library permanent access to all of the content it purchases. Under the new contract, the library would have lost all of the content if and when it left OverDrive.
"We said 'no,' Budler said. "We're challenging that we lease rather than own."
She said Kansas was, in some ways, a leader among libraries negotiating terms with publishers in the emerging e-book market.
Kansas was one of the first states to organize its libraries into a statewide consortium to negotiate with publishers. Butler said that, at a conference last week, she spoke with librarians from other states who said they didn't think their libraries had ownership of the digital content they were purchasing. Bu-
dler advised them to look closely at their contracts.
"You have to regotiate that," she said.
The Kansas State Library currently offers at least 2,447 e-books and 7,732 downloadable audiobooks, among other digital content.
The current contract with OverDrive ends Dec. 5. Butler said the new contract with M3 provides for the libraries ownership of content and other state libraries may not have reached such favorable terms. The state library will start testing 3M's system in December. Budler said 3M was a little behind in its development of the state library's platform, but that she didn't think there would be any gap in downloadable
The e-books that patrons download from the library work on most electronic readers. Budler said the Amazon Kindle does not support some of those, but that Amazon was working with publishers to make the content and the readers compatible.
The Lawrence Public Library participates in the state library program and patrons can down-
availability between the end of the current contract and the beginning of the new one. More than half of the library's e-books, and 40 percent of the audio books are currently moving over to the new 3M platform.
Index CLASSIFIEDS 9 CRYPTOQUIPS 4 SPORTS 10
CROSSWORD 4 OPINION 5 SUDOKU 4
All contents, unless stated otherwise, © 2011 The University Daily Kansan
SEE EBOOKS ON PAGE 3
Don't forget
Go to the women's basketball exhibition game against Emporia State tonight at 8 p.m.
Today's Forecasts done by University students. For a more detailed forecast, see page 24.
HI: 55
LO: 30
Weather