Month: March 2012

Research Data Librarian at Georgia Tech Library

The Georgia Tech Library is recruiting a Research Data Librarian.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

The Georgia Tech Library seeks a collaborative and innovative professional to take a lead role in the expansion of our research data curation and management services. Reporting to the Head of Scholarly Communication & Digital Curation Services, the Research Data Librarian will participate in a range of activities to advance the Library's strategic objectives for e-Science support and data stewardship. As a member of the cross-functional Research Data Project Team, the incumbent will coordinate group meetings and help shape data curation plans and strategies.

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

"Altmetrics in the Wild: Using Social Media to Explore Scholarly Impact"

Jason Priem, Heather A. Piwowar, and Bradley M. Hemminger have self-archived "Altmetrics in the Wild: Using Social Media to Explore Scholarly Impact" in arXiv.org.

Here's an excerpt:

In growing numbers, scholars are integrating social media tools like blogs, Twitter, and Mendeley into their professional communications. The online, public nature of these tools exposes and reifies scholarly processes once hidden and ephemeral. Metrics based on this activities could inform broader, faster measures of impact, complementing traditional citation metrics. This study explores the properties of these social media-based metrics or "altmetrics," sampling 24,331 articles published by the Public Library of Science. We find that different indicators vary greatly in activity. Around 5% of sampled articles are cited in Wikipedia, while close to 80% have been included in at least one Mendeley library. There is, however, an encouraging diversity; a quarter of articles have nonzero data from five or more different sources. Correlation and factor analysis suggest citation and altmetrics indicators track related but distinct impacts, with neither able to describe the complete picture of scholarly use alone. There are moderate correlations between Mendeley and Web of Science citation, but many altmetric indicators seem to measure impact mostly orthogonal to citation. Articles cluster in ways that suggest five different impact "flavors," capturing impacts of different types on different audiences; for instance, some articles may be heavily read and saved by scholars but seldom cited. Together, these findings encourage more research into altmetrics as complements to traditional citation measures.

| Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010 | Digital Scholarship |

NEH Announces New Digital Humanities Start-Up Grant Recipients

The National Endowment for the Humanities's Office of Digital Humanities has announced the recipients of 22 new Digital Humanities Start-Up Grants.

The announcement was part of a larger announcement of $17 million in grants for 208 humanities projects. A state-by-state list of these grants is available.

| Institutional Repository and ETD Bibliography 2011 | Digital Scholarship |

Current News: Twitter Updates for 2/20/12

| Digital Scholarship |

Senior System Analyst/Programmer at Indiana University’s University Information Technology Services

Indiana University's University Information Technology Services is recruiting a Senior System Analyst/Programmer.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

Provides technical expertise and leadership in the design, evaluation, development, integration, and enhancements supporting of Library Information Systems. Systems are deployed in a Linux infrastructure environment consisting of web development tools and frameworks, Oracle, and customized vendor and open source library systems (Blacklight and the Kuali OLE project). Collaborates with library team business analysts and developers within the central computing organization and IU libraries; develops standards and best practices using J2EE technologies and standard web tools; and mentors other team developers. Collaborates with developers and functional team members to gather specifications and document and validate information systems requirements for complex business processes or technical challenges. Establishes estimates and designs application solutions; develops, tests, and deploys complex programs; and assists with management of application releases. Develops interfaces between library and other applications. This position reports to the UITS manager, Library Information Systems team.

| Institutional Repository Bibliography | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview |

"Trends from the Canadian IR/ETD Survey 2012"

Nancy Stuart and Katy Nelson have self-archived "Trends from the Canadian IR/ETD Survey 2012" in UVicSPACE.

Here's an excerpt:

The purpose of the 2012 Canadian IR/ETD Survey was two-fold. The first was to show the growth of Institutional Repositories (IRs) across Canada. The second was to illustrate the state of the electronic theses and dissertations (ETD) submission programs at Canadian institutions granting graduate degrees, where a thesis or dissertation is a requirement for graduation.

| Institutional Repository and ETD Bibliography 2011 | Digital Scholarship |

Copyright Officer at Texas State University Library

The Texas State University Library is recruiting a Copyright Officer.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

Create and establish a service to provide scholars with copyright expertise for their questions. Contribute to the University's copyright policy development and establish best practices guidelines. Serve in a leadership role on the University's copyright advisory committee. Develop copyright educational programs. Monitor legislative developments and case law relevant to copyright and alert library and university leadership accordingly. Partner with library staff on copyright and scholarly communication initiatives, notably in the development of a scholarly communication program.

| Electronic Theses and Dissertations Bibliography | Digital Scholarship |

Federal Research Public Access Act Gains 24 New Co-sponsors

The Federal Research Public Access Act has gained 24 new bipartisan co-sponsors.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The new co-sponsors. . . join the bill's original sponsors, Rep. Mike Doyle (D-PA), Rep. Lacy Clay (D-MO) and Rep. Kevin Yoder (R-KS). These new supporters reflect the consistently broad and bi-partisan appeal of this policy, which would ensure that taxpayers are guaranteed free, online access to articles reporting on the results research that their tax dollars have funded.

This issue was explored in depth at a briefing on Capitol Hill yesterday, hosted by the office of Rep. Mike Doyle. The briefing featured two expert speakers. First, Dr. Neil Thakur, Special Assistant to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Deputy Director for Extramural Research and Program Manager for the NIH Public Access Policy, presented a thorough view of that agency's experience with their landmark Public Access policy. He noted that the NIH considers public access as central to their mission, and as a critical component in ensuring that the public's investment in NIH-funded research is leveraged to its fullest.

He was followed by Elliot Maxwell, Program Director of the Digital Connections Council of the Committee for Economic Development and author of the recent Kaufman Foundation for Entrepreneurship-funded report, "The Future of Taxpayer-Funded Research: Who Will Control Access to the Results?" Maxwell presented a synopsis of the report focusing on the potential impacts of expanding the NIH Policy to other U.S. Federal science agencies. He explored the potential benefits this expansion might have on scientific productivity, economic growth, innovation and national competitiveness.

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

Metadata Technology Specialist at New York University Libraries

The New York University Libraries are recruiting a Metadata Technology Specialist.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

Support metadata-driven discovery and access within NYU Libraries systems; analyze, design and implement scripts and methods for metadata extraction, transformation, and ingest; develop tools, training and documentation in support of metadata encoding and transformation; assist in database table maintenance, system reporting, analysis, trouble-shooting, and upgrades; contribute to research and development of NYU metadata projects and initiatives; consult as needed with NYU units beyond KADD and KARMS.

| Electronic Theses and Dissertations Bibliography | Digital Scholarship |

"The Effects of Open Access Mandates on Institutional Repositories in the UK and Germany"

Sabine Elisabeth Puskas has self-archived her Master's dissertation, "The Effects of Open Access Mandates on Institutional Repositories in the UK and Germany," in the Loughborough University Institutional Repository.

Here's an excerpt:

There is evidence that institutional mandates do have effects on institutional repositories in different ways, e.g. on content deposited and service provision. The effects vary according to the characteristics of repositories and the approach taken by institutions. The research results also indicate that the experiences of institutions with a mandate and the expectations of institutions without one are almost identical across both the UK and Germany, although the developmental context of institutional repositories and institutional mandates in these two countries are very different.

| Institutional Repository and ETD Bibliography 2011 | Digital Scholarship |

Digital Library Infrastructure Lead at University of Notre Dame’s Hesburgh Libraries

The University of Notre Dame's Hesburgh Libraries are recruiting a Digital Library Infrastructure Lead.

Here's an excerpt from ad:

Reporting to the Digital Library Services Department Head, we are seeking a senior candidate with strong software development and leadership skills to lead and implement automated services to support digital initiatives for both the Hesburgh Libraries and the wider campus community. Collaborating with the Digital Library Services Department Head and Digital Library Applications Lead, the incumbent will lead digital library infrastructure design to ensure access, discovery, security, data integrity, and preservation of unique library collections, campus research data, and conference event data. The incumbent will lead creation of complex software services to automate capture of metadata, archive data files, transform image and video files, automate digitization, and aggregate information from multiple sources.

| Digital Scholarship's Digital Bibliographies | Digital Scholarship |

"Wait for It. . . Commons, Copyright and the Private (Re)Ordering of Scientific Publishing"

Jorge L. Contreras has self-archived "Wait for It. . . Commons, Copyright and the Private (Re)Ordering of Scientific Publishing" in SSRN.

In this paper, Contreras critiques various open access strategies, and he proposes that publishers be granted one-year exclusive licenses as an alternative to these strategies.

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

COUNTER Code of Practice for Usage Factors, Draft Release 1

COUNTER (Counting Online Usage of Networked Electronic Resources) has released the COUNTER Code of Practice for Usage Factors, Draft Release 1.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The Draft Release 1 of the COUNTER Code of Practice for Usage Factors, is one of the most significant outcomes to-date of the Usage Factor project, and is an important part of this, the final Stage of the project, which will take Usage Factor forward to full implementation. This Draft Release 1 is based on well-established COUNTER standards, procedures and protocols; it is designed to enable the recording and reporting by publishers of credible, consistent and compatible global Usage Factors for online publications hosted by them (and incorporating usage of these publications on other platforms that are capable of delivering COUNTER-compliant usage statistics). While Release 1 of this Code of Practice focuses on Usage Factors for journals, it is envisaged that its scope will be extended in subsequent Releases to cover other online publications, such as books and reference works.

| Digital Scholarship's Digital Bibliographies | Digital Scholarship |

"Enhancing Scholarly Publications: Developing Hybrid Monographs in the Humanities and Social Sciences"

Nicholas W. Jankowski, Andrea Scharnhorst, Clifford Tatum, and Zuotian Tatum have self-archived "Enhancing Scholarly Publications: Developing Hybrid Monographs in the Humanities and Social Sciences" in SSRN.

Here's an excerpt:

Enhancing publications has a long history but is gaining acceleration as authors and publishers explore electronic tablets as devices for dissemination and presentation. Enhancement of scholarly publications, in contrast, more often takes place in a Web environment and is coupled with presentation of supplementary materials related to research. The approach to enhancing scholarly publications presented in this article goes a step further and involves the interlinking of the "objects" of a document: datasets, supplementary materials, secondary analyses, and post-publication interventions. This approach connects the user-centricity of Web 2.0 with the Semantic Web. It aims at facilitating long-term content structure through standardized formats intended to improve interoperability between concepts and terms within and across knowledge domains. We explored this conception of enhancement on a small set of books prepared for traditional academic publishers. While the project was primarily an exercise in development, the conclusion section of the article reflects on areas where conceptual and empirical studies could be initiated to complement this new direction in scholarly publishing.

For related information, see the SURF Enhancing Scholarly Publishing in the Humanities and Social Sciences project website.

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

Guidelines for a Long-Term Preservation Strategy for Digital Reproductions and Metadata

The Digitising Contemporary Art project has released Guidelines for a Long-Term Preservation Strategy for Digital Reproductions and Metadata.

Here's an excerpt:

These Guidelines for a long-term preservation strategy for digital reproductions and metadata explains how to preserve digital materials such as text, images and video. It gives a theoretical introduction to the subject as well as practical examples of how to manage a collection of digitised and born-digital artworks. . . .

These Guidelines are intended to be used by participants of the DCA project, but can also be used by other institutions in the process of digitising their collections. The different elements of digital preservation are explained in a basic and accessible way that is not too technical. Together with some examples from real life situations and recommendations for practical tools, this approach should give the basics needed for collection managers to create a suitable preservation policy and plan. It is important to keep in mind that digital preservation is a continuous process that has to be regularly re-evaluated by the collecting institution.

| Digital Curation and Preservation Bibliography 2010 | Digital Scholarship |

IT Systems Manager, Software Systems Development & Research at University of Maryland Libraries

The University of Maryland Libraries are recruiting an IT Systems Manager, Software Systems Development & Research.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

The SSDR Manager will be responsible for the research, development, deployment, support and management of library application software and software systems; and for the integration, implementation, and maintenance of software to provide acquisition, curation, preservation, access and discovery services to the libraries' collections. The software development activities encompass all phases of software development lifecycle, including implementation of interfaces to other software systems, development of Web interfaces and user interfaces for the tools developed in SSDR.

| Institutional Repository Bibliography | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview |

Library Publishing Services: Strategies for Success: Final Research Report

James L. Mullins et al. have self-archived the Library Publishing Services: Strategies for Success: Final Research Report in e-Pubs,. In 2011, a more detailed preliminary version of the report was released, and readers may want to consult that as well.

Here's an excerpt:

This report briefly presents the findings and recommendations of the "Library Publishing Services: Strategies for Success" project which investigated the extent to which publishing has now become a core activity of North American academic libraries and suggested ways in which further capacity could be built. The research described (consisting of a survey, some case studies, three workshops, and a set of further reading recommendations) was mainly conducted between October 1, 2010, and September 30, 2011. It was supported by a grant from the Institute for Museum and Libraries Studies, made to Purdue University Libraries in collaboration with the Libraries of the Georgia Institute of Technology and the J. Willard Marriott Library at the University of Utah.

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

Current News: Twitter Updates for 3/15/12

| Digital Scholarship |

Current News: Twitter Updates for 3/14/12

| Digital Scholarship |

Head of Metadata Creation at Harvard Library

The Harvard Library is recruiting a Head of Metadata Creation.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

Reporting to the Head of Information and Technical Services (ITS) and working closely with the ITS management team, the Head of Metadata Creation will lead staff members engaged in conceptualizing, developing and managing metadata descriptive practices that leverage a rich past as Harvard explores new, scalable techniques to provide access to unique content and objects. Together they will lead the effort to optimize metadata, including user generated metadata, and cataloging output and to find new ways to make the library's collections more accessible to local and global user communities and scholarly resources existing elsewhere more accessible to Harvard faculty and students. Success attributes include strong strategic focus, active participation in the ITS management team, a visible commitment to staff development in an environment that promotes creativity, innovation and continuous improvement, robust and effective communication with key constituents and stakeholders, and accountability for results.

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

The Value and Benefits of Text Mining

JIASC has released The Value and Benefits of Text Mining.

Here's an excerpt:

Vast amounts of new information and data are generated everyday through economic, academic and social activities. This sea of data, predicted to increase at a rate of 40% p.a., has significant potential economic and societal value. Techniques such as text and data mining and analytics are required to exploit this potential. . . .

To date there has been no systematic analysis of the value and benefits of text mining to UK further and higher education (UKFHE), nor of the additional value and benefits that might result from the exceptions to copyright proposed by Hargreaves. JISC thus commissioned this analysis of 'The Value and Benefits of Text Mining to UK Further and Higher Education'.

We have explored the costs, benefits, barriers and risks associated with text mining within UKFHE research using the approach to welfare economics laid out in the UK Treasury best practice guidelines for evaluation [2]. We gathered our evidence from consultations with key stakeholders and a set of case studies.

| Institutional Repository and ETD Bibliography 2011 | Digital Scholarship |

Director of Library Information Technology Office at Columbia University Libraries/Information Services

Columbia University Libraries/Information Services are recruiting a Director of Library Information Technology Office.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

The Columbia University Libraries/Information Services seeks an experienced professional to serve as the Director of the Library Information Technology Office (LITO). The incumbent will oversee the planning, implementation and operation of all aspects of Library management and related systems, staff and public computing, servers and storage systems. Many of the projects will require collaboration with other departments within Columbia's Digital Program and Technology Services (DPTS) division as well as the Columbia University Information Technology Office. This position has four direct reports and a total staff of sixteen, along with an equipment budget of approximately $750,000.

| Digital Scholarship's Digital Bibliographies | Digital Scholarship |

NEH Preservation and Access Research and Development Grants

The National Endowment for the Humanities is accepting proposals for its Preservation and Access Research and Development grants program.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

NEH especially encourages applications that address the following topics:

  • Digital Preservation: how to preserve digital humanities materials, including born-digital materials;
  • Recorded Sound and Moving Image Collections: how to preserve and increase access to the record of the twentieth century contained in these formats; and
  • Preventive Conservation: how to protect humanities collections and slow their deterioration through the use of sustainable preservation strategies.

| Digital Curation and Preservation Bibliography 2010 | Digital Scholarship |