Robert Kaplan Appointed Associate Director for Behavioral and Social Sciences Research at the NIH
Robert M. Kaplan, Ph.D., has been appointed director of the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR) and NIH Associate Director for Behavioral and Social Sciences Research. OBSSR's work focuses on how behavioral and social factors often influence illness and health. The office stimulates and integrates behavioral and social sciences research across NIH's institutes and centers to improve the understanding, treatment, and prevention of disease.
Dr. Kaplan was previously a distinguished professor in the department of health services at the School of Public Health and the department of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine, UCLA. He has also served as the principal investigator of the UCLA/RAND CDC Prevention Research Center and director of the UCLA/RAND Health Services Research training program. His research interests include behavioral medicine, health services research, health outcome measurement and multivariate data analysis. He is editor-in-chief of the American Psychological Association journal Health Psychology.
Dr. Kaplan will join the NIH in early 2011. “NIH will benefit from Dr. Kaplan's longstanding proven expertise in high priority behavioral health areas such as tobacco-induced lung disease,” said NIH director, Dr. Francis S. Collins. “His commitment to evidence-based behavioral research and his broad knowledge of health services research and epidemiology will be a significant asset to OBSSR and all of NIH. I look forward to welcoming him to NIH.”
Library of Congress Launches National Digital Stewardship Alliance
The Library of Congress recently announced the formation of the National Digital Stewardship Alliance (NDSA), a partnership of institutions and organizations dedicated to preserving and providing access to selected databases, Web pages, video, audio and other digital content with enduring value.
The alliance is an outgrowth of the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP), which the Library has administered since 2000. In establishing the program, Congress directed the Library to work with other federal agencies and a variety of additional communities to develop a national approach to digital preservation. NDIIPP has achieved substantial success though partnering with more than 170 institutions to provide access to a diverse national collection of digital content. This work demonstrates that a collective effort can achieve far more than individual institutions working alone.
The NDSA will focus on several goals. It will develop improved preservation standards and practices; work with experts to identify categories of digital information that are most worthy of preservation; and take steps to incorporate content into a national collection. It will provide national leadership for digital-preservation education and training. The new organization will also provide communication and outreach for all aspects of digital preservation.
The NDSA will launch with a core set of founding members drawn from current NDIIPP project partners. Those members will develop a roadmap for immediate action, including a process for expanding membership. For more information, visit http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/ndsa/.
National Historic Publications and Records Commission Reauthorization Bill Markup Postponed Indefinitely
On July 30, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee's scheduled mark up of legislation (H.R. 5616) to reauthorize the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) at a $20 million level from fiscal year 2011 to fiscal year 2015, was postponed indefinitely.
Although no official reason was given as to why the bill was pulled from the agenda at the last minute, apparently the Republican members of the committee had planned to offer a number of crippling amendments. These included cutting the authorization level for the NHPRC in the bill to $10 million and limiting eligibility and the scope of projects the NHPRC could fund.
For example, days before the hearing, Representative Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) introduced H.R. 5865, the “Stop Wasting Archive Grants Act of 2010.” The bill would prohibit the Archivist of the United States from making “grants to preserve or publish non-Federal records.”
On July 1, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee's Subcommittee on Information Policy, Census and the National Archives had cleared the bill by a vote of 6–1.
The Senate has already passed a bill (S. 2872) to reauthorize the NHPRC at a $10 million for fiscal years 2010–14 (S. Rept. 111-213).
