Category: Research Libraries

"How Libraries Can Support Society Publishers to Accelerate Their Transition to Full and Immediate OA and Plan S"

Alicia Wise and Lorraine Estelle have published "How Libraries Can Support Society Publishers to Accelerate Their Transition to Full and Immediate OA and Plan S" in Insights: The UKSG Journal.

Here's an excerpt:

The relationship between libraries and society publishers has not previously been a close one. While transactions have in the past been mediated by third parties, larger commercial publishers or agents, there is now an opportunity for strategic new collaborations as societies seek to transition to open access (OA) and deploy business models compliant with Plan S. Wellcome, UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP) commissioned Information Power Ltd to undertake to support society publishers in accelerating their transition to OA in alignment with Plan S. Outcomes demonstrate support in principle from library consortia and their members to repurpose existing expenditure to help society publishers to successfully make a full transition to OA. Principles to inform the short- and medium-term development of OA transformative agreements have been co-developed by consortium representatives and publishers to inform development of an OA transformative agreement toolkit.

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"The Impact of Targeted Data Management Training for Field Research Projects—A Case Study"

Jonathan L. Petters et al. have published "The Impact of Targeted Data Management Training for Field Research Projects—A Case Study" in Data Science Journal.

Here's an excerpt:

We present a joint effort at Virginia Tech between a research group in the Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation and Data Services in the University Libraries to improve data management for long-term ecological field research projects in the Florida Panhandle. Consultative research data management support from Data Services in the University Libraries played an integral role in the development of the training curriculum. Emphasizing the importance of data quality to the field workers at the beginning of this training curriculum was a vital part of its success. Also critical for success was the research group’s investment of time and effort to work with field workers and improve data management systems. We compare this case study to three others in the literature to compare and contrast data management processes and procedures. This case study serves as one example of how targeted training and efforts in data and project management for a research project can lead to substantial improvements in research data quality.

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"Springer Nature and the Austrian Academic Library Consortium Renew Open Access Contract for Another Three Years"

Springer Nature has released "Springer Nature and the Austrian Academic Library Consortium Renew Open Access Contract for Another Three Years."

Here's an excerpt:

Springer Nature and the Austrian Academic Library Consortium… have renewed their existing open access contract for Springer journals. The transformative agreement enables researchers and students in Austria to publish peer-reviewed research articles open access in more than 1,900 Springer journals without additional fees. Consortium members also gain access to more than 2,000 Springer, Palgrave Macmillan and Adis subscription journals. Running from 1 January 2019 to 31 December 2021, the three-year agreement comprises 34 Austrian research institutions (universities, universities of applied sciences, research institutes and state libraries) and the FWF Austrian Science Fund.

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"Next Generation Library Publishing Partnership Awarded $2.2m from Arcadia to Improve Scholarly Publishing Infrastructures"

The Educopia Institute has released "Next Generation Library Publishing Partnership Awarded $2.2m from Arcadia to Improve Scholarly Publishing Infrastructures."

Here's an excerpt:

Through this project, Educopia and its partner institutions—California Digital Library (CDL), Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR), Longleaf Services, LYRASIS, and Strategies for Open Science (Stratos)—will provide new publishing pathways for authors, editors, and readers by advancing and integrating open source publishing infrastructure to provide robust support for library publishing.

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"Projekt Deal and Springer Nature Reach Understanding on World´s Largest Transformative Open Access Agreement"

The German Rectors' Conference (HRK) has released "Projekt Deal and Springer Nature Reach Understanding on World´s Largest Transformative Open Access Agreement."

Here's an excerpt:

A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed today between MPDL Services, on behalf of Projekt DEAL, and Springer Nature sets the scene for the world’s most comprehensive open access (OA) agreement to be finalised later this year. . . .

The transformative two-part agreement will encompass a fully OA element and a Publish and Read (PAR) element. This will enable eligible authors to publish OA in both Springer Nature’s fully OA journals, the largest OA portfolio in the world with over 600 titles, and Springer Nature’s collection of 1,900 hybrid journals, which collectively already publish one in four of all OA articles. In addition, the model provides the academic community of the participating institutions with permanent reading access to content in Springer, Palgrave, Adis, and Macmillan academic journals published during the term of the contract.

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"Evolution of an Institutional Repository: A Case History from Nebraska"

Paul Royster has self-archived "Evolution of an Institutional Repository: A Case History from Nebraska."

Here's an excerpt:

The 13-year history of the institutional repository (IR) at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln is recounted with emphasis on local conditions, administrative support, recruitment practices, and management philosophy. Practices included offering new services, hosting materials outside the conventional tenure stream, using student employees, and providing user analytics on global dissemination. Acquiring trust of faculty depositors enhanced recruitment and extra-library support. Evolution of policies on open access, copyright, metadata, and third-party vendors are discussed, with statistics illustrating the growth, contents, and outreach of the repository over time. A final section discusses future directions for scholarly communications and IRs in particular.

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"Providing Research Data Management (RDM) Services in Libraries: Preparedness, Roles, Challenges, and Training for RDM Practice"

Data and Information Management has released "Providing Research Data Management (RDM) Services in Libraries: Preparedness, Roles, Challenges, and Training for RDM Practice" by Rong Tang Zhan Hu.

Here's an excerpt:

This paper reports the results of an international survey on research data management (RDM) services in libraries. More than 240 practicing librarians responded to the survey and outlined their roles and levels of preparedness in providing RDM services, challenges their libraries face, and knowledge and skills that they deemed essential to advance the RDM practice. Findings of the study revealed not only a number of location and organizational differences in RDM services and tools provided but also the impact of the level of preparedness and degree of development in RDM roles on the types of RDM services provided.

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The Public-Access Computer Systems Review, an Open Access Journal, Was Launched 30 Years Ago This August

On 8/16/1989, the University of Houston Libraries launched The Public-Access Computer Systems Review (PACS Review). Its first issue was published in January 1990.

What were some of the distinguishing characteristics of this early digital journal?

  • It was a born-digital journal. Major journal publishers, such as Elsevier, would experiment with providing access to born-print journals in university settings starting in the mid-1990's.
  • It was peer reviewed by a distinguished international editorial board with members from Canada, the USA and the UK.
  • It was officially published by an research library.
  • It was a library and information science journal with librarians primarily acting as editors and editorial board members.
  • It allowed authors to retain copyright.
  • It had special copyright provisions for noncommercial use.
  • It was freely available.
  • It adopted an accelerated publication schedule to publish articles as quickly as possible.
  • It published articles by influential authors, such as Stevan Harnad, John Kunze, John Price Wilkin, Ann Okerson, Vicky Reich, and John Unsworth.
  • It allowed authors to publish updated versions of their articles.
  • It was issued an ISSN number in 1990.
  • It was indexed by three major index and abstracting services.

Below is a description of the journal. For information about other early digital publishing projects by libraries, see the Academic Library as Scholarly Publisher Bibliography.

History of the Journal

After being authorized by Robin N. Downes, the University of Houston Libraries' visionary Director, the journal was announced on the PACS-L discussion list on August 16, 1989. A call for papers was issued on October 16, 1989. The publication of the first issue was announced on January 3, 1990. The journal was cataloged on OCLC and assigned an ISSN number (1048-6542) by the Library of Congress National Serials Data Program on February 1, 1990.

Initially, the journal published scholarly papers (Communications section), columns, and reviews. Papers in the Communications section were selected by the Editor-in-Chief and the Associate Editor, Communications. A private mailing list was utilized for communication with editorial staff and Editorial Board members. Most communication with authors was done via e-mail, including paper submission.

The PACS Review was published three times a year. New issue announcements were distributed as e-mail messages on the PACS-L discussion list, and users retrieved the ASCII article files from the University of Houston's LISTSERV via e-mail. (LISTSERV distribution was suspended in 1999.)

Authors retained the copyright to PACS Review articles, and they gave the University of Houston the nonexclusive right to publish the articles in the journal and in future publications. Authors could republish their articles elsewhere, but they agreed to mention prior publication of the articles in the PACS Review within these works. Copying of PACS Review articles was permitted for educational, noncommercial use by academic computer centers, individual scholars, and libraries.

On October 29, 1991, the journal adopted a more flexible publication schedule that reduced article publication time.

A Refereed Articles section of the journal was announced on November 11, 1991, and a call for papers was issued on February 6, 1992. The Refereed Articles section included papers that were peer reviewed by Editorial Board members using a double-blind review procedure, which was usually conducted via e-mail. The publication of the first refereed paper was announced on April 6, 1992.

Between 1992 and 1996, the first five volumes of The Public-Access Computer Systems Review were also published in book form by the Library and Information Technology Association (LITA). Walt Crawford prepared the camera-ready copy for these volumes and Charles W. Bailey, Jr. provided editorial support.

Starting on April 6, 1992, PACS Review issue publication announcements were also distributed on the PACS-P list.

On January 29, 1994, the distribution of the journal via University of Houston Libraries' Gopher server was announced. (Gopher distribution was suspended in 1998.) The journal ceased publishing reviews in 1994.

On March 9, 1995, the distribution of the journal via University of Houston Libraries' Web server was announced.

Starting with the first issue of volume six (March 21, 1995), the PACS Review: (1) published articles in both ASCII and HTML formats, (2) offered HTML articles with both internal and external links, and (3) gave authors the option of updating the HTML version of their articles. The first updated article was "Network-Based Electronic Publishing of Scholarly Works: A Selective Bibliography" by Charles W. Bailey, Jr., which was updated 25 times.

At the end of 1996, Mr. Bailey stepped down as Editor-in-Chief.

Pat Ensor and Thomas C. Wilson became Editors-in-Chief in January 1997. They edited volumes eight (1997) and nine (1998). Publication of the last issue was announced on June 18, 1998. Papers were under consideration for publication until August 2000, when the journal ceased operation.

During its nine years of publication, the PACS Review published 42 issues that included 112 articles, columns, reviews, and editorials.

The PACS Review was indexed in Current Index to Journals in Education, Information Science Abstracts, and Library Literature.

The journal is archived on the Internet Archive and the Texas Digital Library.

Editorial Staff

Editors-in-Chief

  • Charles W. Bailey, Jr., 1989-1996
  • Pat Ensor, 1997-2000
  • Thomas C. Wilson, 1997-2000

Associate and Copy Editors

  • Leslie Dillon, Associate Editor (1990) and Associate Editor, Columns (1991-1997)
  • Elizabeth A. Dupuis, Associate Editor, Columns (1997-2000)
  • John E. Fadell, Copy Editor (1998-2000)
  • Andrea Bean Hough, Associate Editor, Communications (1997-2000)
  • Mike Ridley, Associate Editor (1989-1990) and Associate Editor, Reviews (1991)
  • Dana Rooks, Associate Editor, Communications (1991-1997)
  • Robert Spragg, Associate Editor, Technical Support (1996-2000)
  • Roy Tennant, Associate Editor, Reviews (1992-1993)
  • Ann Thornton, Associate Editor, Production (1995-2000)

Editorial Board Members

  • Ralph Alberico (1992-2000)
  • George H. Brett II (1992-2000)
  • Priscilla Caplan (1994-2000)
  • Steve Cisler (1992-2000)
  • Walt Crawford (1989-2000)
  • Lorcan Dempsey (1992-2000)
  • Pat Ensor (1994-1996)
  • Nancy Evans (1989-2000)
  • Stephen Harter (1997-2000)
  • Charles Hildreth (1992-2000)
  • Ronald Larsen (1992-2000)
  • Clifford Lynch (1992-2000)
  • David R. McDonald (1989-2000)
  • R. Bruce Miller (1989-2000)
  • Ann Okerson (1997-2000)
  • Paul Evan Peters (1989-1996)
  • Mike Ridley (1992-2000)
  • Peggy Seiden (1995-2000)
  • Peter Stone (1989-2000)
  • John E. Ulmschneider (1992-2000)

Columnists

  • Priscilla Caplan (1992-1998)
  • Walt Crawford (1989-1995)
  • Martin Halbert (1990-1993)

Use Statistics

Only partial use statistics are available for the journal. LISTSERV use statistics were not tallied. From 1994 through 1996, the journal received over 81,000 Gopher requests. From March 1995 through 2006, the journal received over 4.2 million Web file requests.

Articles About the Journal

Speech about the Journal

Reviews of the Journal

A Look Back at 30 Years as an Open Access Publisher | Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"ARL, CNI, EDUCAUSE Form Strategic Partnership to Advance Research Libraries’ Impact in a World Shaped by New Technologies"

ARL has released "ARL, CNI, EDUCAUSE Form Strategic Partnership to Advance Research Libraries' Impact in a World Shaped by New Technologies."

Here's an excerpt:

The three partner organizations are focused on understanding how such technologies and emerging disciplines as data science, artificial intelligence, mobility and ubiquitous networking, cloud and ambient computing, augmented/virtual reality, and the internet of things are—and are not—fundamentally transforming the way research and learning occur. More specifically, the partners will focus on understanding the role research libraries are playing and need to play in this dynamic context.

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"Raising Visibility in the Digital Humanities Landscape: Academic Engagement and the Question of the Library’s Role"

Kathleen Kasten-Mutkus et al. have published "Raising Visibility in the Digital Humanities Landscape: Academic Engagement and the Question of the Library's Role" in Digital Humanities Quarterly.

Here's an excerpt:

Academic libraries have an important role to play in supporting digital humanities projects in their communities. Librarians at Stony Brook University Libraries host Open Mic events for digital humanities researchers, teachers, and students on campus. Inspired by a desire to better serve digital humanists with existing projects, this event was initially organized to increase the visibility of scholars and students with nascent projects and connect these digital humanists to library supported resources and to one another. For the Libraries, the Open Mic was an opportunity to understand the scope and practices of the digital humanities community at Stony Brook, and to identify ways to make meaningful interventions.

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"The Oregon Digital Newspaper Program’s Commitment to Open Access"

Sarah Seymore, has published "The Oregon Digital Newspaper Program's Commitment to Open Access" in the OLA Quarterly.

Here's an excerpt:

The Oregon Digital Newspaper Program (ODNP) at the University of Oregon Libraries is an initiative to digitize historic and current Oregon newspapers, making them freely available to the public through a keyword-searchable online database. The ODNP is committed to open access and has included collaboration and data sharing with larger programs like the Library of Congress' Chronicling America historic newspaper website. Since 2015, the ODNP has increased its open access mission by archiving and hosting born-digital newspaper content, as well as continuing digitization of historic newspapers from microfilm and print. This article outlines the ODNP's past and current open access efforts, inclusion of diverse content, and open source, sustainable applications, websites, and workflows.

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Mind the Gap: A Landscape Analysis of Open Source Publishing Tools and Platforms

John W Maxwell et al. have published Mind the Gap: A Landscape Analysis of Open Source Publishing Tools and Platforms

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Here's an excerpt:

In 2018 the MIT Press secured a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon foundation to conduct a landscape analysis of open source publishing systems, suggest sustainability models that can be adopted to ensure that these systems fully support research communication and provide durable alternatives to complex and costly proprietary services. John Maxwell at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver conducted the environmental scan and compiled this report.

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"Consortial RightsStatements.org Implementation and Faceted Search for Reuse Rights in Digital Library Materials"

Wilhelmina Randtke, Randy Fischer, and Gail Lewis have published "Consortial RightsStatements.org Implementation and Faceted Search for Reuse Rights in Digital Library Materials" in the Code4Lib Journal.

Here's an excerpt:

The Florida Academic Library Services Cooperative (FALSC) makes available digital library hosting free-of-charge to all institutions of Florida public higher education. 21 institutions participate in the Islandora digital library platform hosted through FALSC. Centralized digital library hosting through FALSC, or its predecessor consortium, has been available since 1994. Meanwhile, the RightsStatements.org standard, which provides a controlled vocabulary for indicating the copyright status of digital library material, was released in 2016. After the standard was released, participating libraries expressed interest in implementing RightsStatements.org for existing digital content. During Fall 2018 and Spring 2019, FALSC implemented RightsStatements.org values on Islandora sites. This article describes the process undertaken by FALSC, the lessons learned, and recommendations for libraries looking to implement RightsStatements.org values.

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Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem: "Cornell Joins TOME Open Monograph Initiative as 15th University Member"

ARL has released "Cornell Joins TOME Open Monograph Initiative as 15th University Member."

Here's an excerpt:

The Association of American Universities (AAU), the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), and the Association of University Presses (AUPresses) welcome Cornell University to the Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem initiative. This pilot effort aims to support the digital publication of peer-reviewed scholarly books by participating university presses, allowing the free publication of these works online and broadly improving access to these works by scholars and the public.

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"Roles and Jobs in the Open Research Scholarly Communications Environment: Analysing Job Descriptions to Predict Future Trends"

Nancy Pontika has published "Roles and Jobs in the Open Research Scholarly Communications Environment: Analysing Job Descriptions to Predict Future Trends" in LIBER Quarterly.

Here's an excerpt:

During the past two-decades academic libraries updated current staff job responsibilities or created brand new roles. This allowed them to adapt to scholarly communication developments and consequently enabled them to offer efficient services to their users. The global calls for openly accessible research results has shifted the institutional, national and international focus and their constant evolvement has required the creation of new research positions in academic libraries. This study reports on the findings of an analysis of job descriptions in the open research services as advertised by UK academic libraries.

METHOD: From March 2015 to March 2017, job advertisements relating to open access, repositories and research data management were collected.

RESULTS: The analysis of the data showed that the primary responsibilities of the open research support staff were: to ensure and facilitate compliance with funders’ open access policies, maintain the tools that enable compliance, create reports and collect statistics that measure compliance rates and commit to continuous liaising activities with research stakeholders.

DISCUSSION: It is clear that the open research services is a complex environment, requiring a variety of general and subject specific skill sets, while often a role may involve more than one area of expertise.

CONCLUSION: The results of this study could benefit prospective employees and universities that wish to embed open research skills in their curriculum.

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