Month: January 2014

Digital Curation News (1/24/2014) #digitalpreservation

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Integrated Library System Administrator at Saskatchewan Information and Library Services Consortium

The Saskatchewan Information and Library Services Consortium is recruiting a Integrated Library System Administrator.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

The Integrated Library System Administrator is responsible for the support and administration of the Consortium's integrated library system (ILS) that provides a variety of services including circulation, cataloguing, acquisitions, serials, reports, external interface functions, and public access. Work is performed with considerable independent judgment and initiative.

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"Bringing Digital Science Deep Inside the Scientific Article: The Elsevier Article of the Future Project"

The LIBER Quarterly has released a future article: "Bringing Digital Science Deep Inside the Scientific Article: The Elsevier Article of the Future Project."

Here's an excerpt:

In 2009, Elsevier introduced the"Article of the Future" project to define an optimal way for the dissemination of science in the digital age, and in this paper we discuss three of its key dimensions. First we discuss interlinking scientific articles and research data stored with domain-specific data repositories—such interlinking is essential to interpret both article and data efficiently and correctly. We then present easy-to-use 3D visualization tools embedded in online articles: a key example of how the digital article format adds value to scientific communication and helps readers to better understand research results. The last topic covered in this paper is automatic enrichment of journal articles through text-mining or other methods. Here we share insights from a recent survey on the question: how can we find a balance between creating valuable contextual links, without sacrificing the high-quality, peer-reviewed status of published articles?

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Internet Applications Systems Specialist at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library is recruiting a Internet Applications Systems Specialist.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

Working under the direction of the Library Technical Architect for Web Content, the person in this position also provides the Library with the expertise and resources to work on enhancements and support of our Web Content Management Systems (CMS), including OpenCMS and Drupal.

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"Research Libraries’ New Role in Research Data Management, Current Trends and Visions in Denmark"

The LIBER Quarterly has released a future article: "Research Libraries' New Role in Research Data Management, Current Trends and Visions in Denmark."

Here's an excerpt:

The first part of this paper presents the findings of a research project carried out under the auspices of DEFF. . . .This paper describes the various paths chosen by individual universities and research institutions, and the background for their strategies of research data management. Among the main reasons for the uneven practices are the lack of a national policy in this field, the different scientific traditions and cultures and the differences in the use and organization of IT-services. The second part of this paper presents perspectives of this development that are of particular relevance to research libraries. As they already curate digital collections and are active in establishing web archives,the research libraries become involved in research and dissemination of knowledge in new ways. This paper gives examples of how The State and University Library's services facilitate research data management with special regard to digitization of research objects, storage, preservation and sharing of research data. This paper concludes that the experience and skills of research libraries make the libraries important partners in a research data management infrastructure.

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Web Services Librarian at University of Houston—Victoria Library

The University of Houston—Victoria Library is recruiting a Web Services Librarian.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

Provides vision and direction for all aspects of the library's website; work collaboratively with library staff to maintain quality online services and resources; and provides leadership in developing web-based applications.

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Open Access Publishing: A Literature Review

CREATe has released Open Access Publishing: A Literature Review.

Here's an excerpt:

Within the context of the Centre for Copyright and New Business Models in the Creative Economy (CREATe) research scope, this literature review investigates the current trends, advantages, disadvantages, problems and solutions, opportunities and barriers in Open Access Publishing (OAP), and in particular Open Access (OA) academic publishing. This study is intended to scope and evaluate current theory and practice concerning models for OAP and engage with intellectual, legal and economic perspectives on OAP. It is also aimed at mapping the field of academic publishing in the UK and abroad, drawing specifically upon the experiences of CREATe industry partners as well as other initiatives such as SSRN, open source software, and Creative Commons. As a final critical goal, this scoping study will identify any meaningful gaps in the relevant literature with a view to developing further research questions. The results of this scoping exercise will then be presented to relevant industry and academic partners at a workshop intended to assist in further developing the critical research questions pertinent to OAP.

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Web Developer and User Interface Designer at University of California, Riverside Libraries

The University of California, Riverside Libraries are recruiting a Web Developer and User Interface Designer .

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

Reporting to the Associate University Librarian for Information Technology and Systems, the Web Developer and User Interface Designer will provide technology services to the UCR University Libraries organization and will have strong graphic design, website, and editorial skills. Duties include, but are not limited to, supporting, designing, and developing internal and public websites, web-based applications, social media sites, and multimedia content. Innovative applications will include new initiatives in digital collections, scholarly communication, and resource discovery.

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Université de Montréal Will Cancel about 75% of Wiley Online Library Periodicals

The Université de Montréal will cancel about 75% of its Wiley Online Library periodicals.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Out of 1510 periodicals in the Wiley Online Library, the Université de Montréal is cancelling subscriptions to 1142 titles at the end of January. As a result, and from this point on, the articles found in the cancelled titles will no longer be available on-line. However, access to earlier issues will be entirely maintained.

This action results from a process that started a long while ago. The financial cut-backs imposed by the Québec government only accelerated the decision process. The result of the analysis is simple: libraries have been driven to the wall because of the yearly rise of subscriptions to periodicals that hover between 3% and 6%. They cannot go on cutting back the acquisition of monographs to compensate for such price increases. As a result, this conclusion, as well as the adopted solution, would have been the same a few years down the line, independently of the financial context.

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Digital Curation News (1/22/2014) #digitalpreservation

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Linked Data Technologist at Stanford University Libraries

Stanford University Libraries are recruiting a Linked Data Technologist.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

The primary duty of the Linked Data Technologist will be the transformation of metadata from multiple metadata schemas into approved RDF models for ingestion into appropriate data stores (triple store, etc.). More specific duties include the automated remediation and augmentation of ingested metadata to meet the model's standard including both the development of various mechanisms for data manipulation and the processing itself, as well as the identification and scoping of both local and external sources of metadata that can be remediated through semi-automated means. Candidate metadata will need to be analyzed for technical conformance to its metadata schema so that conversion to RDF can take place accurately. The incumbent will also be responsible for the investigation and selection of key technologies to meet program objectives and the combination, integration, and tracking of provenance of ingested metadata.

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"E-Book Monopolies and the Law"

Angela Daly has self-archived "E-Book Monopolies and the Law" in SSRN

Here's an excerpt:

This article will examine the legality of the digital rights management ("DRM") measures used by the major e-book publishers and device manufacturers in the United States, European Union and Australia not only to enforce their intellectual property rights but also to create monopolistic content silos, restrict interoperability and affect the ability for users to use the content they have bought in the way they wish. The analysis will then proceed to the recent competition investigations in the US and EU over price-fixing in e-book markets, and the current litigation against Amazon in the US for an alleged abuse of its dominant position. A final point will be made on possible responses in Australia to these issues taking into account the jurisprudence on DRM in other scenarios.

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Lead Systems Architect/Engineer at New York Public Library

The New York Public Library is recruiting a Lead Systems Architect/Engineer.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

With the support of the federal government and a broad coalition of library partners, The New York Public Library is building a small, empowered product team to develop a mobile platform for ebook lending and reading that could serve as model for public libraries across North America. The ideal candidate is that rare intersection of software super geek (Google keeps calling you) and social do-gooder seeking to improve public access to knowledge and information. If you're game to help re-imagine the public library eBook experience, then make that vision real (and scaleable), then we want you.

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A Workflow Model for Curating Research Data in the University of Minnesota Libraries: Report from the 2013 Data Curation Pilot

Lisa R. Johnston has self-archived A Workflow Model for Curating Research Data in the University of Minnesota Libraries: Report from the 2013 Data Curation Pilot.

Here's an excerpt:

The 2013 Data Curation Project set out to test and expand the University Libraries' programmatic and technical capacities to support research data management needs on campus by establishing a fixed-term data curation pilot. This pilot utilized our current suite of services and expertise in the University with the objective of developing a model workflow for curating a variety of types of research data in the Libraries. Specifically, in eight months, this project resulted in 1) a data curation workflow utilizing existing university resources; 2) five pilot research datasets that were solicited, selected, and curated for discovery and reuse in the libraries' digital repository, the University Digital Conservancy, at the persistent URL, http://purl.umn.edu/160292; and 3) and a summary report describing the successes and shortcomings of this approach. This report summarizes the steps taken to curate the datasets in the pilot, faculty needs and reactions to the result, and in addition to the specific dataset treatments, an overall data curation workflow is presented that outlines the steps needed for any dataset. A discussion of this process provides some useful lessons learned. As a result of this project, the University Libraries now hold a more realistic sense of the overall capacities and expertise needed to develop a sustainable data curation service model. Additionally, the Libraries are better prepared to fine-tune and implement selected recommendations from previous assessments and committee reports.

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Librarian—Archives & Repository at Stephen F. Austin State University Library

The Stephen F. Austin State University Library is recruiting a Librarian—Archives & Repository.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

This is a professional, faculty position responsible for coordinating the processing and digitization of university archival materials for inclusion in the digital repository. Responsible for maintaining and updating the Records Retention Schedule in accordance with established standards. Responsible for keeping university departments aware of changes in retention periods for the records of the university.

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"Unix Commands and Batch Processing for the Reluctant Librarian or Archivist"

Anthony Cocciolo has published "Unix Commands and Batch Processing for the Reluctant Librarian or Archivist" in the Code4Lib Journal.

Here's an excerpt:

The Unix environment offers librarians and archivists high-quality tools for quickly transforming born-digital and digitized assets, such as resizing videos, creating access copies of digitized photos, and making fair-use reproductions of audio recordings. These tools, such as ffmpeg, lame, sox, and ImageMagick, can apply one or more manipulations to digital assets without the need to manually process individual items, which can be error prone, time consuming, and tedious. This article will provide information on getting started in using the Unix environment to take advantage of these tools for batch processing.

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Software Developer at George Washington University Libraries

The George Washington University Libraries are recruiting a Software Developer.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

The individual to fills the Software Developer position will:

  • Lead development or be in a supporting role in a wide range of collaborative software projects, from backend to frontend, using multiple languages and frameworks, with scopes big and small, on short deadlines and for ongoing projects.
  • Manage and support the full software lifecycle from requirements to implementation, production support, enhancement, and maintenance.
  • Implement and support craftsmanlike practices to help our team work reliably and efficiently together, whether it's code style, testing, managing issues and iterations, deployment strategies, or documentation.

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"Do Altmetrics Correlate with Citations? Extensive Comparison of Altmetric Indicators with Citations from a Multidisciplinary Perspective"

Rodrigo Costas, Zohreh Zahedi, Paul Wouters have self-archived "Do Altmetrics Correlate with Citations? Extensive Comparison of Altmetric Indicators with Citations from a Multidisciplinary Perspective" in arXiv.org.

Here's an excerpt:

An extensive analysis of the presence of different altmetric indicators provided by Altmetric.com across scientific fields is presented, particularly focusing on their relationship with citations. Our results confirm that the presence and density of social media altmetric counts are still very low and not very frequent among scientific publications, with 15%-24% of the publications presenting some altmetric activity and concentrating in the most recent publications, although their presence is increasing over time. Publications from the social sciences, humanities and the medical and life sciences show the highest presence of altmetrics, indicating their potential value and interest for these fields. The analysis of the relationships between altmetrics and citations confirms previous claims of positive correlations but relatively weak, thus supporting the idea that altmetrics do not reflect the same concept of impact as citations. Also, altmetric counts do not always present a better filtering of highly cited publications than journal citation scores. Altmetrics scores (particularly mentions in blogs) are able to identify highly cited publications with higher levels of precision than journal citation scores (JCS), but they have a lower level of recall. The value of altmetrics as a complementary tool of citation analysis is highlighted, although more research is suggested to disentangle the potential meaning and value of altmetric indicators for research evaluation.

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Digital Curation News (1/20/2014) #digitalpreservation

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Web/Database Development Librarian at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Health Sciences Library

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Health Sciences Library is recruiting a Web/Database Development Librarian.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

Reporting to the Head of the Web Development Group, the individual in this position works collaboratively with the AHEC ILS Network Director and the Director of the AHEC Digital Library to plan, design, support, and implement new technologies and procedures for all AHEC library programs and other clinical support programs. Expected services include: development and maintenance of ADL architecture using SQL, ColdFusion, PHP, and other appropriate software applications; development of specifications and plans for new version releases and updates; creation of primary responsibility for ADL technical troubleshooting; conducting usability testing on ADL, in conjunction with HSL's Web Developer Group; working with University Libraries Proxy Services to ensure smooth, easy ADL remote access, campus proxy transition and compliance, and other technical troubleshooting efforts; supporting cross-platform federated search and open url access, and working with member institutions in establishing institution-wide ADL access.

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Safe to Be Open: Study on the Protection of Research Data and Recommendation for Access And Usage

OpenAIRE has released Safe to Be Open: Study on the Protection of Research Data and Recommendation for Access And Usage.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

This study addresses the most important legal issues when implementing an open access e-infrastructure for research data. It examines the legal requirements for different kinds of usage of research data in an open access infrastructure, such as OpenAIREplus, which links them to publications. The existing legal framework regarding potentially relevant intellectual property (IP) rights is analysed from the general European perspective as well as from that of selected EU Member States. Various examples and usage scenarios are used to explain the scope of protection of the potentially relevant IP rights. In addition different licence models are analysed in order to identify the licence that is best suited to the aim of open access, especially in the context of the infrastructure of OpenAIREplus. Based on the outcomes of these analyses, some recommendations to the European legislator as well as data- and e-infrastructure providers are given on improving the rights situation in relation to research data.

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Systems Librarian at Tulane University’s Howard-Tilton Memorial Library

Tulane University's Howard-Tilton Memorial Library is recruiting a Systems Librarian.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

The Systems Librarian is an innovative and service-oriented librarian with shared responsibility for the library integrated library system (Voyager), resource discovery tool (Primo), OpenURL link resolver (SFX), proxy authentication (EzProxy), digital repositories and interlibrary loan {ILLiad) systems, including but not limited to monitoring systems and ensure optimal performance, enabling data integration across distributed and heterogeneous local and external data sources, promptly reporting issues/problems to vender and follow-through until resolved, and providing statistical, usage and collection reports in support of decision making for library collections and services. As a systems liaison to library departments, participate in selected working groups to improve systems and services. Additionally, the librarian will assist with oversight for staff computers/equipment, including but not limited to ordering, deploying, recycling, troubleshooting problems and maintaining accurate inventory for equipment and software licensing. This position reports to the Senior Systems Librarian.

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"Have Digital Repositories Come of Age? The Views of Library Directors"

David Nicholas et al. have published "Have Digital Repositories Come of Age? The Views of Library Directors" in Webology.

Here's an excerpt:

This survey of approximately 150 repositories assessed the achievements, impact, and success of digital repositories. Results show that while the size and use of repositories has been relatively modest, almost half of all institutions either have, or are planning, a repository mandate requiring deposit and small gains have been made in raising the profile of the library within the institution. Repositories, then, have made a good deal of progress, but they have not quite come of age.

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