DigitalKoans – Page 50 – What Is the Sound of One E-Print Downloading?

Archivist (Humanitarian Archives) at University of Manchester

We are seeking to appoint an Archivist with a proven track record in digital archives. As part of a Wellcome grant devoted to the history of humanitarian medicine, the post holder will work on developing the humanitarian archive, collecting the personal papers of humanitarians and small NGOs and cataloguing recently acquired collections. A core part of this role is to create a digital toolkit for contemporary humanitarians and NGOs seeking to develop sustainable archives. . . . The Humanitarian Archivist will work closely with the Library’s Digital Preservation and Systems Manager to develop workflows for the ingest and management of a range of born digital records into the Preservica digital preservation system.

https://bit.ly/3pYKkD1

"Books in a Bubble.: Assessing the OAPEN Library Collection "

Open access infrastructure for books is becoming more mature, and it is being used by an in-creasing number of people. The growing importance of open access infrastructure leads to more interest in sustainability, governance and impact assessment. For this paper, we will assess the OAPEN Library. In the spring of 2022, it passed the milestone of 20,000 titles. This was a good moment to evaluate the core asset of the OAPEN Library: its collection.

The OAPEN Library contains freely accessible books and chapters, all of which have undergone external peer review. In other words, it functions as an academic library and in our assessment we should treat it as such. However, it is an online library and the limitations of physical books do not play a part. Shelf space is not to be considered.

More important is the question of how well the collection meets the needs of its users. The OAPEN Library sees global usage; the collection reflects this by offering titles in over 50 languages. The collection is not focused on a specific subject area, but the choice of medium — books and chapters, not journals and articles — is more strongly associated with the humanities and social sciences. It does not track its users, but the supporters of the OAPEN Libraries are globally dis-tributed academic institutions, scientific and scholarly funders and publishers. An assessment of the OAPEN Library should therefore take into account the diversity of languages, subjects and stakeholders.

https://doi.org/10.36253/jlis.it-498

Metadata Specialist at Illinois State University

The primary purpose of this position is to incorporate new content into the digital collections repository, enabling discovery and accessibility of those materials. This includes subject analysis of digitized items and the creation, enhancement, and maintenance of descriptive metadata for a range of digital media types such as images, books, manuscripts and diaries, oral histories, audio files, moving images, maps, broadsides, and three-dimensional objects in the library’s digital collections.

https://bit.ly/45owtWS

"Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) Releases the National Advocacy Framework for Open Educational Resources (OER)"

The Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) is proud to announce the release of a comprehensive document, A National Advocacy Framework for Open Educational Resources in Canada, aimed at advancing the adoption and support of open educational resources (OER) across the country.

This framework is the result of collaborative efforts involving diverse stakeholders, including national student groups, provincial open education organizations, scholars, advocates in open education, and representatives from higher education institutions. Its purpose is to help advance and inform advocacy efforts directed at the Federal government. The ultimate goal is to provide guidance to stakeholders in advocating for federal involvement in OER.

https://bit.ly/3OvhBzL

Discovery Systems Librarian at Texas A&M University

The Assistant Librarian will participate in the development and administration of the Libraries’ Discovery Technology portfolio through the planning, configuration, and operation of the Libraries’ Resource Discovery Layers and Library Service Platforms. The Discovery Systems Librarian will participate in the design, testing, deployment, and maintenance of discovery and inventory systems including Application Program Interfaces (APIs) from Library vendors.

https://cutt.ly/a6N5rsX

"Rethinking Transparency and Rigor from a Qualitative Open Science Perspective"

To further complicate matters, many qualitative researchers would posit that while secondary data are a combination of the researcher’s perceptions and observations, even primary data, such as interview transcripts, are filtered to some extent through the researcher. This is because, in qualitative research, the researcher is an instrument of both data collection and analysis . . . .

The researcher-as-instrument tradition also complicates discussions around reproducibility (i.e., the ability for another researcher to look at someone’s data and reproduce the analyses), one of the key components of rigor as it is currently discussed in the open science movement (NIH, n.d.). Quantitative researchers’ focus on reproducibility is often contrary to the tenets of qualitative research, particularly in methodologies aiming to uncover new ways of knowing, such as constructivist and grounded theory approaches. If one understands the researcher as a data collection instrument and a filter through which data is processed, strict quantitative-focused reproducibility becomes less likely—not through misconduct or error, but because ultimately, people conduct research, and people are not likely to have exactly the same perspectives. Guidelines that reinforce reproducibility without addressing this tension are not going to be useful for all researchers.

https://bit.ly/3MEbtnk

Software Applications Developer 1 at University of Cincinnati

Full-time staff appointment responsible for developing, implementing, and maintaining software, applications, and innovative technologies to advance UC Libraries’ operations and services. Supports an increasing portfolio of IT needs related to the Libraries’ strategic initiatives including digital transformation, digital humanities, digital literacy, and search and discovery.

https://bit.ly/3MEbGH8

"UC Berkeley University Librarian Jeff MacKie-Mason Announces Retirement Plans"

Among the hallmarks of MacKie-Mason’s tenure at the Library has been his commitment to open access. As co-chair of the University of California’s publisher negotiation team, he was instrumental in the university system securing a groundbreaking deal with publishing giant Elsevier. To date, UC has struck open access deals with 15 publishers, including all of the top five publishers of UC-authored articles. Together, these agreements make it possible for 54 percent of all UC-authored articles to be published open access, so they are freely available to anyone, anywhere in the world.

https://bit.ly/3IoEfGm

Cataloging and Digital Projects Librarian at University of Arkansas

Reporting to the Director for Content Services, the Cataloging and Digital Projects Librarian serves as the primary metadata specialist for the Libraries’ CONTENTdm digital collections, working collaboratively with the department head, the Digital Services Department, the Special Collections Division, and other staff in Content Services to complete individual projects. The librarian also collaborates with the Office of Scholarly Communications and User Services to create metadata for University of Arkansas Department of Music concert recordings in the ScholarWorks (Digital Commons) institutional repository. The librarian harvests ScholarWorks metadata for graduate theses and dissertations for import into WorldCat and Alma.

https://bit.ly/3MCNFjY

"EU’s New AI Law Targets Big Tech Companies but Is Probably Only Going to Harm the Smallest Ones"

In a bold stroke, the EU’s amended AI Act would ban American companies such as OpenAI, Amazon, Google, and IBM from providing API access to generative AI models. The amended act, voted out of committee on Thursday, would sanction American open-source developers and software distributors, such as GitHub, if unlicensed generative models became available in Europe. While the act includes open source exceptions for traditional machine learning models, it expressly forbids safe-harbor provisions for open source generative systems.

Any model made available in the EU, without first passing extensive, and expensive, licensing, would subject companies to massive fines of the greater of €20,000,000 or 4% of worldwide revenue.

(Quote from Technomancers.ai.)

https://bit.ly/3ociZwo

"Supreme Court Rules against Reexamining Section 230"

The Supreme Court has declined to consider reinterpreting foundational internet law Section 230, saying it wasn’t necessary for deciding the terrorism-related case Gonzalez v. Google. The ruling came alongside a separate but related ruling in Twitter v. Taamneh, where the court concluded that Twitter had not aided and abetted terrorism.

https://cutt.ly/Z6BKtx6

"Supreme Court Rules against Warhol Foundation in Copyright Fight over Prince Images"

The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that silkscreens pop artist Andy Warhol made of rock star Prince infringed on the copyright held by a prominent photographer who captured the original image. . . . Sotomayor wrote that the images "share substantially the same purpose, and the use is of a commercial nature. " The Warhol foundation had "offered no other persuasive justification for its unauthorized use of the photograph, " she added.

https://cutt.ly/t6BHEre

Head of Scholarly Services at Yeshiva University

Develops, maintains, and promotes all aspects of the law school’s institutional repository, LARC, including faculty profiles, loading content, metadata and performing outreach to the law school community to solicit new projects.

Manages and maintains the faculty’s presence on scholarly platforms including SSRN, HeinOnline, and ORCID, including managing faculty working papers.

Develops resources and initiatives to support faculty scholarly services in collaboration with the Director of the Law Library and Head of Reference.

https://cutt.ly/76L44ck

"PeerJ Announces a New Open Access Model and the University of Bath as Their First Institutional Partner"

PeerJ has announced a new Open Access model and their first institutional partner. The award-winning publisher intends to move towards collective action for globally equitable Open Access, and their first step to this goal is a new model for institutional partners — Annual Institutional Memberships (AIMs). AIMs remove payment barriers to Open Access for authors, reduces the administration of Open Access payments, and guarantees value for partners. The University of Bath is PeerJ’s first partner in this new program, which will provide unlimited publishing for Bath’s faculty for a flat annual fee.

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/989462

Electronic and Media Resources Librarian at Northeast College of Health Sciences

Reporting to the Library Director, the Electronic and Media Resources Librarian (EMRL) is responsible for the day-to-day management of the library’s electronic resources: databases, e-books, e-journals, access and discovery tools, LibGuides, and EZproxy configuration. The EMRL takes part in the acquisition, development, and supervision of the media collections in physical and digital formats, to include use of media materials and collections by students, faculty and staff with special emphasis on curricular uses of media; and anticipates technology/ format migrations and upgrades and identifies older materials for conversion and preservation.

https://cutt.ly/n6L50By

"A Scoping Review on the Use and Acceptability of Preprints"

Preprints are open and accessible scientific manuscript or report that has not been submitted to a peer reviewed journal. The value and importance of preprints has grown since its contribution during the public health emergency of the COVID-19 pandemic. Funders and publishers are establishing their position on the use of preprints, in grant applications and publishing models. However, the evidence supporting the use and acceptability of preprints varies across funders, publishers, and researchers. The purpose of this scoping review was to explore the current evidence on the use and acceptability of preprints by publishers, funders, and the research community throughout the research lifecycle.

https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/nug4p

Systems Librarian at Bridgewater State University

The Systems Librarian will be primarily responsible for management of Koha (Integrated Library System), the Maxwell Library website (which is set for a complete redesign in the upcoming months), Springshare’s LibApps suite of software, and the ILLiad Interlibrary Loan system, as well as any new applications the library may adopt or develop. The incumbent will also collaborate as required to maintain systems and applications that the e-Resources Librarian, Digital Services & Metadata Librarian, and the Head of Archives & Special Collections employ.

https://jobs.bridgew.edu/postings/24925

"Project MUSE Announces Strategic Organizational Changes"

To better align with the changing scholarly communications landscape, MUSE has created a new department for Library & Publisher Partnerships. With many of our partner publishers now reporting to libraries, and many libraries now delving into publishing activities, MUSE seeks to create more connections between these two key constituencies. Kelley Squazzo has been appointed Director of Library & Publisher Partnerships, and will oversee both the current publisher relations and library sales teams at MUSE.

https://about.muse.jhu.edu/news/new-organization

Digital Library Software Engineer at Harvard University

The Library Technology Services team at Harvard University is seeking an experienced and motivated Digital Library Software Engineer (DLSE) to support the development of the next-generation Digital Repository Service (DRS) and its integration in the current software ecosystem.

https://bit.ly/42MUHbp

"Major YouTube Copyright Lawsuit Nears Trial With Almost Everything On the Line"

Maria Schneider’s lawsuit against YouTube alleges several types of mass copyright infringement and repeat infringer failures. The trial begins next month, with proposed jury instructions already running to 243 pages. YouTube believes it will win, but the stakes are rarely this high. In addition to damages, the plaintiffs want YouTube to disclose details of files that remain on the site after identical copies were removed due to DMCA notices. And that’s not all.

https://bit.ly/3pMnw9m

Software Engineer, Enterprise Library Systems at Indiana University

The Enterprise Library Systems Team in UITS encompasses a team-based work environment in which we develop and support all aspects of Indiana University Library Systems including the SirsiDynix Symphony Library Management System, the IU online Catalog (IUCAT), and the locally developed Bento-style library discovery tool. . . . Enterprise Solutions is seeking a collaborative professional Software Engineer with proven experience building well-architected applications and services.

https://bit.ly/41I12nd

"Guest Post — Do Libraries Still Dream Unified Dreams? Part 1"

Yet the old library dream of a unified library system remains strong. Ex Libris, the biggest technology services provider in the academic library sector for library management systems, is increasingly coupling its flagships Alma and Primo VE together. Most other large providers work towards similar unified platforms. Koha ILS, previously focused more on print material, recently created its own, internal ERM module rather than integrating with other more specialized software. Even the new open-source software platform FOLIO, where modularity is one of its key components, is often branded as a unified solution (though with choice among its movable parts).

https://bit.ly/41D4Fe8

Digital Library Data Engineer at Harvard University

The Library Technology Services (LTS) team at Harvard University is seeking an inquisitive and motivated Digital Library Data Engineer (DLDE) to join our exciting project to build the university’s next generation Digital Preservation System (DPS). This role will be responsible for the design, development, and maintenance of data APIs, extract/load/transform (ETL) activities, helping to manage data migration from existing data endpoints to the new systems and defining data integration services for our application portfolio.

https://bit.ly/3IcYrdR

Paywall: "Microsoft Says New A.I. Shows Signs of Human Reasoning"

When computer scientists at Microsoft started to experiment with a new artificial intelligence system last year, they asked it to solve a puzzle that should have required an intuitive understanding of the physical world. . . . The clever suggestion [by the AI] made the researchers wonder whether they were witnessing a new kind of intelligence. In March, they published a 155-page research paper arguing that the system was a step toward artificial general intelligence, or A.G.I., which is shorthand for a machine that can do anything the human brain can do.

https://bit.ly/42FkLp1

Research Support Librarian at Sheffield Hallam University

The team works in the areas of scholarly communication and open access, including electronic theses and the Research Excellence Framework (REF); research data management; information skills for researchers, including induction of new staff and students; research insight and the responsible use of metrics in research assessment; the promotion of open research practices in the institution. In addition, the team maintains our publications management system (Symplectic Elements), our research data repository (SHURDA), and our journal publishing system (Sheffield Hallam Journals). The current focus of our work lies in starting a conversation in the institution around Open Research, and the rollout of rights retention for all scholarly papers.

https://bit.ly/3pFKQ8E