Month: February 2012

Ithaka S+R Research Support Services for Scholars: History Project. Interim Report: Interviews with Research Support Professionals

Ithaka S+R has released the Ithaka S+R Research Support Services for Scholars: History Project. Interim Report: Interviews with Research Support Professionals.

Here's an excerpt:

Funded by the NEH, Ithaka S+R’s History Project, part of the Research Support Services for Scholars Program, will explore the information support needs and changing research practices of academic historians in the United States. The evolution of technology and its impact on scholarship in the humanities has sparked and sustained the wide-spread Digital Humanities movement. Historians in particular have engaged new technologies, and the subsequently enabled research methodologies and publication platforms are transforming the field. Consequently, many support service providers would like to better understand the evolving practices of historians and adapt their services to facilitate these new processes.

For the first phase of the Research Support Services for Scholars History Project, Ithaka S+R interviewed professionals who work in support of the scholarly life cycle of historians. Before interviewing faculty directly, it was important to establish an understanding of the breadth of support available to history faculty on campus, as well as the environment and institutions that support their research from concept to publication. The goal for this set of interviews was to explore the different types of service models currently engaged for supporting history research on campus and the challenges that research support professionals are facing in today’s rapidly evolving research environment.

| Digital Scholarship's Digital/Print Books | Digital Scholarship |

Digital Archivist at Florida State University Libraries

The Florida State University Libraries are recruiting a Digital Archivist.

Here's an excerpt ad:

The Florida State University Libraries seeks a Digital Archivist to develop, implement, and provide leadership for digital initiatives involving Special Collections materials and services. The Digital Archivist will be creative, dynamic, and articulate and be skilled in digitization, metadata, project and website management, and digital preservation. The Digital Archivist will report to the Associate Dean for Special Collections and Archives.

| Digital Curation and Preservation Bibliography | Digital Scholarship |

Open Definition Licenses Service Launched

The Open Knowledge Foundation has launched the Open Definition Licenses Service.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The service is ultra simple in purpose and function. It provides:

  • Information on licenses for open data, open content, and open-source software in machine readable form (JSON)
  • A simple web API that allows you retrieve this information over the web — including using javascript in a browser via JSONP

In addition to the service there’s also:

  • A licenses git repo and project on github
  • An Open Licenses dataset on the DataHub. . . .

There's data on more than 100 open (and a few closed) licenses including all OSI-approved open source licenses and all Open Definition conformant open data and content licenses. Also included are a few closed licenses as well as "generics" — licensed representing a category (useful where a user does not know the exact license but knows, for example, that the material only requires attribution).

| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview |

Current News: Twitter Updates for 2/15/12

| Digital Scholarship |

Digital Technologies/Systems Librarian at Boston University’s Pappas Law Library

Boston University's Pappas Law Library is recruiting a Digital Technologies/Systems Librarian.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

Provide technology and systems expertise to ensure that the Law Library optimally utilizes all existing digital technologies as well as investigates new technologies that enhance the discovery and delivery of legal information to faculty and students. Working collaboratively with managers and librarians from all units in the Library, as well as librarians at other Boston University libraries, the Digital Technologies & Systems Librarian continually implements new library technologies and online systems to improve workflow and services.

| Institutional Repository Bibliography | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview |

Journal of Digital Humanities to Launch in March

The Journal of Digital Humanities will launch this March.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Digital Humanities Now is pleased to announce the Journal of Digital Humanities (ISSN 2165-6673), forthcoming in March 2012. In this comprehensive, peer-reviewed journal we will feature the best scholarship, projects, and tools produced by the digital humanities community in the previous quarter.

The Journal of Digital Humanities will offer expanded coverage of the digital humanities in three ways. First, we publish scholarly work beyond the traditional research article. Second, we select content from open and public discussions in the field. Third, we encourage continued discussion through peer-to-peer review.

The journal will be comprised of individual works that were selected as Editors' Choice in Digital Humanities Now. These works range from written texts, to visual arguments, to audio-visual presentations. In order to promote the peer review of non-traditional scholarship, each issue will include solicited reviews of digital tools. When the community focuses extensively on a particular topic, a special section of the issue will feature the broader conversation. In our inaugural issue, Natalia Cecire, a postdoctoral fellow at the Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry at Emory University, will introduce and guest edit a special section about theory and the digital humanities.

| Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography, Version 80 | Digital Scholarship |

Associate University Librarian—Collections and Library Information Systems at University of California, Santa Cruz Library

The University of California, Santa Cruz Library is recruiting an Associate University Librarian—Collections and Library Information Systems.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

The Assistant/Associate University Librarian Collections and Library Information Systems (AUL/CLIS) is a member of the Library's senior management team and has overall responsibility for Library collections, including collection development, the collection budget; acquisitions, cataloging, metadata creation, and serials management; digitization projects, preservation, and scholarly communication; and information systems. In addition, this position provides leadership for the Digital Library Program (DLP) which is dedicated to the production, maintenance, delivery, and preservation of a wide range of high-quality networked resources for scholars and students.

| Digital Bibliographies | Digital Scholarship |

"A Study of Open Access Journals Using Article Processing Charges"

David J. Solomon and Bo-Christer Björk have self-archived "A Study of Open Access Journals Using Article Processing Charges".

Here's an excerpt:

Article Processing Charges (APCs) are a central mechanism for funding Open Access (OA) scholarly publishing. We studied the APCs charged and article volumes of journals that were listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals as charging APCs. These included 1,370 journals that published 100,697 articles in 2010. The average APC was 906 US Dollars (USD) calculated over journals and 904 US Dollars USD calculated over articles. The price range varied between 8 and 3,900 USD, with the lowest prices charged by journals published in developing countries and the highest by journals with high impact factors from major international publishers. Journals in Biomedicine represent 59% of the sample and 58% of the total article volume. They also had the highest APCs of any discipline. Professionally published journals, both for profit and nonprofit had substantially higher APCs than society, university or scholar/researcher published journals. These price estimates are lower than some previous studies of OA publishing and much lower than is generally charged by subscription publishers making individual articles open access in what are termed hybrid journals.

| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview |

Data Processing Automation Programmer at University of Michigan Library

The University of Michigan Library is recruiting a Data Processing Automation Programmer (3-year term position with the possibility for renewal).

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

DLPS is looking for a talented, resourceful programmer to develop, maintain, document, and monitor software systems. Primary focus will be placed on developing highly reliable software tools for routine data processing on a large scale. Specific processing tasks include file format conversion, optical character recognition (OCR), metadata insertion, transformation, validation, and transfer. Work includes assessing needs and specifying software requirements. Development of web interfaces for process management may be needed as well. Other tasks will vary but include, for example, preparing documentation and the development of digital library access systems.

| Electronic Theses and Dissertations Bibliography | Digital Scholarship |

"How the Scientific Community Reacts to Newly Submitted Preprints: Article Downloads, Twitter Mentions, and Citations"

Xin Shuai, Alberto Pepe, Johan Bollen have self-archived "How the Scientific Community Reacts to Newly Submitted Preprints: Article Downloads, Twitter Mentions, and Citations" in arXiv.org.

Here's an excerpt:

We analyze the online response of the scientific community to the preprint publication of scholarly articles. We employ a cohort of 4,606 scientific articles submitted to the preprint database arXiv.org between October 2010 and April 2011. We study three forms of reactions to these preprints: how they are downloaded on the arXiv.org site, how they are mentioned on the social media site Twitter, and how they are cited in the scholarly record. We perform two analyses. First, we analyze the delay and time span of article downloads and Twitter mentions following submission, to understand the temporal configuration of these reactions and whether significant differences exist between them. Second, we run correlation tests to investigate the relationship between Twitter mentions and both article downloads and article citations. We find that Twitter mentions follow rapidly after article submission and that they are correlated with later article downloads and later article citations, indicating that social media may be an important factor in determining the scientific impact of an article.

| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography| Digital Scholarship Publications Overview |

Two Consultants for the Research Collections and Preservation Consortium (ReCAP)

The New York Public Library is recruiting two consultants two consultants for Research Collections and Preservation Consortium (ReCAP).

Here's an excerpt from the ad for a Technology Consultant ReCap Discovery to Delivery Project:

NYPL seeks a Technology Consultant to support the work of the Workflow and Technology Subcommittee (WTS). The Technology Consultant will work closely with the Technology Architect and the Planning Consultant but will also provide deliverables directly to the WTS.

The Technology Consultant will be engaged to perform the following activities:

1. Prepare a technology environmental scan:

a. Identify current technologies available in the ReCAP partner libraries and the ReCAP facility to support discovery, request and delivery, collections management, and collections development

Describe the software systems currently in use to support these library functions at each of the three ReCAP partners and at the ReCAP facility. Include local and external systems that are used by these institutions.

b. In conjunction with the Technology Architect, identify options for software systems to support those four required elements of the shared collection (discovery, request and delivery, collections management, and collections development).

Based on research and domain knowledge, describe software systems (and related services) that could be used to support those functions in the context of a shared collection. Provide a general description of their functionality and their attributes e.g. propriety or open-source, perpetual license or subscription, and/or other attributes as advised by the Technology Consultant. Provide a preliminary assessment of the pros and cons of each system for use by ReCAP shared collections. Note: this activity is intended to describe potential technologies in general, not to recommend specific choices at this time.

Deliverable: A written report to the Technology Architect and the WTS due by April 31, 2012.

2. Make recommendations to the Technology Architect and the WTS about the design of systems infrastructure to support both user-facing and staff-facing services at each member institution to support shared collections.

Working as part of a team including the Technology Architect, the Workflow Consultant, and the Planning Consultant, incorporate information about new services, revised workflows, and system options to produce recommendations about the system infrastructure needed to support ReCAP shared collections. Specific tasks include:

  • Review findings and recommendations made by the Workflow Consultant, who will be engaged to evaluate current workflows associated with selection from the partner libraries for ingest into the ReCAP facility, and to recommend appropriate modifications to these workflows and related technology services necessary to support the shared collection. The Workflow Consultant’s initial report is expected to be available in summer 2012.
  • Consider findings by the Planning Consultant regarding desired organizational structure, governance, and cost-sharing (as available).
  • Assess existing software products applicable to shared collections (as identified in Activity #1) and recommend appropriate solutions for the ReCAP partners’ shared collections system architecture.
  • Identify any needed systems or functionality not currently available in existing software products, with recommendations about how best to fill gaps.
  • Assist the Technology Architect in gathering cost information for implementing or developing the recommended system solutions.

Deliverable: A report to the Technology Architect and the WTS due by September 30, 2012 describing the Technology Consultant’s recommendations for system solutions to support ReCAP shared collections. The report will include any recommendations with respect to priorities, development, or implementation scheduling.

For the complete RFP please contact Joseph Brucia at josephbrucia@nypl.org

Here's an excerpt from the ad for a Workflow Consultant ReCAP Discovery to Delivery Project:

NYPL seeks a Workflow Consultant to support the work of the Workflow and Technology Subcommittee (WTS). The Workflow Consultant will work closely with the Planning Consultant and the technology team but will provide deliverables directly to the WTS.

The Workflow Consultant will be engaged to perform the following activities:

1. Evaluate current workflows associated with transferring materials to and retrieving materials from the ReCAP facility

The Workflow Consultant will document existing workflows at the partner libraries necessary to perform these activities:

  • Select and prepare materials for transfer to ReCAP
  • Request, receive, and return materials needed from ReCAP

The Workflow Consultant will also document workflows at the ReCAP facility necessary to perform these activities:

  • Ingest and shelve new materials from each partner (including use of inventory control system)
  • Respond to request, retrieve, deliver, return and reshelve requested materials.

2. Recommend appropriate modifications to these workflows and related technology services necessary to support the shared collection Deliverables:

Deliverables:

  • An initial report to the WTS due by July 31, 2012 describing current workflows and the Workflow Consultant’s recommendations for workflow changes and system changes necessary to support ReCAP shared collections.
  • A final report due September 30, 2012 based on continued participation in planning discussions with the WTS and the project team, to incorporate modifications based on subsequent decisions about services, organization, or collection management.

For complete RFP please contact Joseph Brucia at josephbrucia@nypl.org

| Digital Bibliographies | Digital Scholarship |

CLIR and NITLE Will Launch Anvil Academic, a "Digital Publisher for the Humanities"

The Council on Library and Information Resources and the National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education will launch Anvil Academic, a "digital publisher for the humanities," in late 2012.

Here's an excerpt from the press release :

Anvil will focus on publishing new forms of scholarship that cannot be adequately conveyed in the traditional monograph.

"Increasingly, research in the humanities is dependent on large data sets and involves sophisticated algorithms and visualizations in the execution of that research and in the construction of the products of scholarship. Anvil will capture the environment in which this research is conducted: a linked ecology of scholarly expression, data, and tools of analysis that will over time become itself a place for new knowledge discovery," said CLIR President Chuck Henry.

Works published through Anvil will be available through Creative Commons licenses on the Web and as apps on portable devices. The title production system will be developed jointly by NITLE and CLIR for use by other institutions, each of which would have the opportunity to publish under its own imprint. . . .

"An important part of the Anvil experiment will be developing and testing new revenue models," said NITLE Executive Director Joey King. "Our current models, which rely heavily on institutional subsidies, author subventions, and revenue from sales of printed books, are not proving to be sustainable. With Anvil, we intend to explore alternative paths to sustainability as rigorously as we explore new publishing models."

The program received startup funding from the Brown Foundation, Inc., in Houston, Texas. Stanford University, the University of Virginia, Washington University in St. Louis, Bryn Mawr College, Amherst College, Middlebury College, and Southwestern University will also provide funds and staffing. Anvil Academic Publishing will work closely with innovative programs developed by the University of Michigan, especially MPublishing, and draw on Johns Hopkins University's exemplary experience with digital humanities project development.

| Digital Scholarship's Digital/Print Books | Digital Scholarship |

Current News: Twitter Updates for 2/13/12

| Digital Scholarship |

Junior Web Developer at New York University Libraries

The New York University Libraries are recruiting a Junior Web Developer.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

Manage Libraries' web sites and ensure their accessibility and operation from conceptualization to launch, including, but not limited to, development of information infrastructure, oversight of database development, and content management solutions. Develop project plans for major site updates; create time lines to meet client deadlines and/or department goals; monitor progress and revise plans.

| Institutional Repository Bibliography | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview |

Users, Narcissism and Control—Tracking the Impact of Scholarly Publications in the 21st Century

The SURFfoundation has released Users, Narcissism and Control—Tracking the Impact of Scholarly Publications in the 21st Century.

Here's an excerpt:

This report explores the explosion of tracking tools that have accompanied the surge of web based information instruments. Is it possible to monitor 'real-time' how new research findings are being read, cited, used and transformed in practical results and applications? And what are the potential risks and disadvantages of the new tracking tools? This report aims to contribute to a better understanding of these developments by providing a detailed assessment of the currently available novel tools and methodologies. A total of 16 quite different tools are assessed.

The report concludes that web based academic publishing is producing a variety of novel information filters. These allow the researcher to make some sort of limited self-assessment with respect to the response to his/her work. However, this does not mean that these technologies and databases can also legitimately be used in research assessments. For this application, they need to adhere to a far stricter protocol of data quality and indicator reliability and validity. Most new tools do not (yet) comply with these more strict quality criteria.

| Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010 | Digital Scholarship |

Technical Services & Digital Initiatives Librarian at Longwood University’s Greenwood Library

Longwood University's Greenwood Library is recruiting a Technical Services & Digital Initiatives Librarian.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

This individual will provide leadership in areas of acquisitions and cataloging/metadata and will spearhead digitization of the Library's unique collections in order to make them available to a wider audience. The successful candidate should be a creative and service-oriented professional who will direct the daily and long-term activities of a department of six classified staff; the successful candidate's leadership should be informed by a vision for a technologically adept library that makes its collections more accessible to users in a fast-paced and rapidly changing environment.

| Digital Bibliographies | Digital Scholarship |

The Future of Taxpayer-Funded Research: Who Will Control Access to the Results?

The Committee for Economic Development has released The Future of Taxpayer-Funded Research: Who Will Control Access to the Results?.

Here's an excerpt:

This report builds upon that earlier work and delves deeper into the relationship between the traditional means of providing access to federally funded scientific research and the benefits that can be derived from providing greater public access to it. As with virtually any public policy, the benefits and costs of providing public access to federally funded research fall unevenly on different members of society. We find, however, that because public-access policies that make research more open result in accelerated progress in science and faster economic growth, the net societal benefits far outweigh their limited costs.

| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview |

Current News: Twitter Updates for 2/12/12

| Digital Scholarship |

Web and Content Developer at Auraria Library

The Auraria Library is recruiting a Web and Content Developer.

Here's an excerpt from the ad (job posting no.: 815796):

The Auraria Library, serving the University of Colorado Denver, Downtown Denver Campus; Metropolitan State College of Denver; and the Community College of Denver, seeks a dynamic, energetic, and innovative individual to serve as the Web and Content Developer. . . .

The incumbent will work closely with the Web Programmer and others throughout the library to make the web site more visually appealing and develop a content management plan to develop high quality content for the site. The incumbent is responsible for creating website templates and layouts, producing graphic elements, and web development and maintenance. The incumbent will lead accessibility, usability and quality assurance activities in relation to the library's online interfaces and write and develop web policies.

| Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography, Version 80 | Digital Scholarship |

Data-Intensive Research: Community Capability Model Framework (Consultation Draft)

The Community Capability Model for Data-Intensive Research project has released a consultation draft of the Community Capability Model Framework.

Here's an excerpt:

The Community Capability Model Framework is a tool developed by UKOLN, University of Bath, and Microsoft Research to assist institutions, research funders and researchers in growing the capability of their communities to perform data-­-intensive research by

  • profiling the current readiness or capability of the community,
  • indicating priority areas for change and investment, and
  • developing roadmaps for achieving a target state of readiness.

The Framework is comprised of eight capability factors representing human, technical and environmental issues. Within each factor are a series of community characteristics that are relevant for determining the capability or readiness of that community to perform data- intensive research.

| E-science and Academic Libraries Bibliography | Digital Scholarship |

Applications Programmer Analyst at Georgetown University Library

The Georgetown University Library is recruiting an Applications Programmer Analyst.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

The Applications Programmer Analyst participates in the planning, design, implementation and maintenance of the library’s core digital and library applications, including the Integrated Library System, Distributed Digital Library Projects, DigitalGeorgetown and library contents platforms.

| Digital Bibliographies | Digital Scholarship |

Call to Action: Support the Federal Research Public Access Act (H.R. 4004 and S. 2096)

The Alliance for Taxpayer Access, whose numerous members include the American Library Association and the Association of College & Research Libraries, has issued a call to action for support of the Federal Research Public Access Act (H.R. 4004 and S. 2096).

Here's an excerpt:

Today (February 9, 2012), Senators Cornyn (R-TX), Wyden (D-OR), and Hutchison (R-TX) and Representatives Doyle (D-PA), Yoder (R-KS), and Clay (D-MO) introduced the Federal Research Public Access Act, a bill that would ensure free, timely, online access to the published results of research funded by eleven U.S. federal agencies.

We currently have a unique opportunity to create change. The Research Works Act, a piece of legislation introduced in December that would ban the government from providing the public access to publicly funded research, has galvanized the research community into acting against practices that restrict access to research articles—reaching the pages of the Economist, the New York Times, Wired, the Guardian, the Chronicle of Higher Education, and many other outlets. . . .

Let Congress know you support FRPAA

With reinvigorated support from the research community and attention from the mainstream media, now is the time to push for this groundbreaking legislation and let Congress know that students—and the rest of the public—deserve access to the research which they paid for and upon which their education depends. . . .

Raise awareness of and build support for FRPAA

  • Sign the ATA Petition in support of FRPAA. Click here to view signatories of the petition. . . .
  • Tweet at or post of the Facebook wall of your legislators to ask them to support and co-sponsor FRPAA; or, if they're already a sponsor, thank them for their leadership. . . .

Background. . . .

Now before both the House of Representatives and the Senate, FRPAA would require those agencies with annual extramural research budgets of $100 million or more to provide the public with online access to research manuscripts stemming from such funding no later than six months after publication in a peer-reviewed journal. The bill gives individual agencies flexibility in choosing the location of the digital repository to house this content, as long as the repositories meet conditions for interoperability and public accessibility, and have provisions for long-term archiving.

The bill specifically covers unclassified research funded by agencies including: Department of Agriculture, Department of Commerce, Department of Defense, Department of Education, Department of Energy, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Transportation, Environmental Protection Agency, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the National Science Foundation.

Further information: "SPARC FAQ for University Administrators and Faculty FRPAA 2012" and "Support FRPAA Banners."

| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography| Digital Scholarship Publications Overview |

Current News: Twitter Updates for 2/9/12

| Digital Scholarship |

Digital Project Coordinator at Library of Congress

The Library of Congress is recruiting a Digital Project Coordinator.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

The position is located in the Integrated Library System Program Office of the Technology Policy Directorate of Library Services information technology (IT) goals through implementation of projects involving the Library's integrated library system, other enterprise systems, and web enabled applications. Individually, and in collaboration with IT and user organization experts, the incumbent develops and coordinates major program components that include IT support for acquisitions, circulation, cataloging, online public professionals, IT specialists, and various working groups throughout the Library involved in technologies and systems supporting the Library's mission. The incumbent plans, coordinates, and manages a wide variety of complex projects and activities related to current and new releases of the various Technology Policy systems.

| Digital Scholarship's Digital/Print Books | Digital Scholarship |

"Putting 600,000 Books Online: the Large-Scale Digitisation Partnership between the Austrian National Library and Google"

Max Kaiser has published "Putting 600,000 Books Online: the Large-Scale Digitisation Partnership between the Austrian National Library and Google" in the latest issue of LIBER Quarterly.

Here's an excerpt:

In a public-private partnership with Google, the Austrian National Library is digitising its historical book holdings. Some 600,000 volumes from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries will be digitised and made available free of charge. The project demonstrates that public-private partnerships can be successful in enabling our heritage institutions to provide large-scale access to their holdings, provided that such partnerships are not exclusive and free access is ensured. The article outlines the preparatory phase and work flows established in the project.

| Google Books Bibliography | Digital Scholarship |