Month: August 2018

Developer, Digital Scholarship at Wake Forest University

Wake Forest University is recruiting a Developer, Digital Scholarship.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

The Digital Scholarship Developer builds and implements new web applications and sites for faculty research projects. This position was created in part through an "Engaged Humanities" grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and is critical to the delivery of essential applications and service as part of the Library’s partnerships with faculty to create digitally-enriched scholarship.

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"How Are We Measuring Up? Evaluating Research Data Services in Academic Libraries"

Heather L. Coates et al. have published "How Are We Measuring Up? Evaluating Research Data Services in Academic Libraries" in the Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication.

Here's an excerpt:

INTRODUCTION In the years since the emergence of federal funding agency data management and sharing requirements (http://datasharing.sparcopen.org/data), research data services (RDS) have expanded to dozens of academic libraries in the United States. As these services have matured, service providers have begun to assess them. Given a lack of practical guidance in the literature, we seek to begin the discussion with several case studies and an exploration of four approaches suitable to assessing these emerging services. DESCRIPTION OF PROGRAM This article examines five case studies that vary by staffing, drivers, and institutional context in order to begin a practice-oriented conversation about how to evaluate and assess research data services in academic libraries. The case studies highlight some commonly discussed challenges, including insufficient training and resources, competing demands for evaluation efforts, and the tension between evidence that can be easily gathered and that which addresses our most important questions. We explore reflective practice, formative evaluation, developmental evaluation, and evidence-based library and information practice for ideas to advance practice. NEXT STEPS Data specialists engaged in providing research data services need strategies and tools with which to make decisions about their services. These range from identifying stakeholder needs to refining existing services to determining when to extend and discontinue declining services. While the landscape of research data services is broad and diverse, there are common needs that we can address as a community. To that end, we have created a community-owned space to facilitate the exchange of knowledge and existing resources.

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Web Developer II at Tulane University

Tulane University is recruiting a Web Developer II.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

The Web Developer II designs, develops, codes, tests, implements, and manages innovative and complex web-based applications for discovering, accessing, and using library resources and services. S/he gathers requirements, writes code and APIs, maintains documentation, and creates web design and layout. S/he is responsible for collaborating with Tulane Technology Services to maintain various local and cloud based servers.

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"A Newbie at the RDAP Summit, or How I Learned that the RDAP Summit is for Everyone"

Joanna Thule has published "A Newbie at the RDAP Summit, or How I Learned that the RDAP Summit is for Everyone " in the Journal of Science Librarian ship.

Here's an excerpt:

After describing the format of the Summit, the highlights of attending are described, including gathering ideas related to all aspects of research data management, access, and preservation; hearing data management perspectives from outside of academic libraries; networking opportunities for the extrovert and introvert; and opportunities to connect with librarians at similar universities and with similar interests.

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Director of Library Systems at Fairfield University

Fairfield University is recruiting a Director of Library Systems.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

The Director of Library Systems leads collaborative integration of digital library initiatives with traditional library services. The Director also manages all aspects of library information technology including the performance, configuration, and integrity of the library’s hosted ILS (Alma) and optimization of routines and functionality to improve staff workflows and users’ experiences through public interfaces.

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Gale S. Etschmaier Named as Dean of Florida State University Libraries

The Florida State University Libraries have released "FSU Names New Dean of University Libraries."

Here's an excerpt:

At San Diego State, Etschmaier provided leadership for the library and the university's student computer hub with more than 700 computers. She oversaw 80 faculty and staff, 100 student assistants and a budget of approximately $12 million.

Prior to her tenure at San Diego State, Etschmaier spent a decade as associate university librarian for public service at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

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Digital Production Technical Manager at University of Tennessee

The University of Tennessee is recruiting a Digital Production Technical Manager.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

The Digital Library Program creates and provides access to unique digital collections to support research and teaching. The Digital Production Technical Manager supports the Program by providing leadership and oversight of the Digital Production Unit’s activities. The Manager directs and oversees the Unit’s daily operations in converting a wide range of materials to digital formats, providing thorough quality control, and ensuring that standards and best practices are followed.

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Digital Access Librarian at University of Tampa

The University of Tampa is recruiting a Digital Access Librarian.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

Incumbent develops, supports and manages web-based systems and services which support the library's electronic resources. Responsible for implementing systems that facilitate search, discovery, curation, and the delivery of library services and content. Acquires and licenses electronic products selected by the library. Ensures cross-platform navigation for the library’s digital solutions.

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"Changing Styles of Informal Academic Communication in the Age of the Web: Orthodox, Moderate and Heterodox Responses"

David Ellis et al. have self-archived "Changing Styles of Informal Academic Communication in the Age of the Web: Orthodox, Moderate and Heterodox Responses."

Here's an excerpt:

Purpose—The purpose of this paper is to report the findings of a study to investigate changes in scholarly communication practices among a group of scholars in the UK and build upon the results that were published in a previous paper. Design/methodology/approach—The study deployed a naturalistic inquiry approach using semi-structured interviews as a qualitative research tool. A sample of 40 participants from four UK universities were interviewed to explore the changes in informal scholarly communication behaviour. Findings—The analysis of the interviews revealed that there are three ideal types of behaviour: the 'Orthodox' uses formal and traditional scholarly communication approaches; the 'Moderate' prioritises formal communication approaches, but at the same time is trying to get benefits from informal channels; and, the 'Heterodox' uses all channels available in scholarly communication.

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And I Thought All We Needed Was Amazon: "People Visited Public Libraries More Than a Billion Times in 2015"

The Institute of Museum and Library Services, has released "People Visited Public Libraries More Than a Billion Times in 2015."

Here's an excerpt:

The Public Libraries Survey report, released today by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, provides a snapshot of public library use, financial health, staffing, and resources in FY 2015. . . .

The 2015 report includes the following findings:

  • Nearly 311 million Americans lived within a public library service area in 2015, an increase from 306 million in 2014.
  • In 2015, there were 1.39 billion visits to public libraries, or 4.48 visits per person.
  • Public libraries offered 4.7 million programs in 2015, attended by nearly 107 million people, 5 million more attendees than the previous year.
  • Public libraries made 1.31 billion collection items available to patrons and provided access to over a quarter million internet computers.
  • The number of electronic materials available through public libraries, including audio, video and e-books, continued to grow. E-books, especially, have seen significant growth, increasing from 0.04 e-book per person in 2006 to just over one e-book per person in 2015. (See table below.)

Read the report: Public Libraries in the United States Survey: Fiscal Year 2015.

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Artificial Intelligence in Libraries in the Late 1980’s and Early 1990’s

In the late 1980's and early 1990's, academic libraries were creating prototype and operational expert systems using expert system shells and logic programming languages, such as Prolog.

A snapshot of this activity in ARL libraries is:

Expert Systems in ARL Libraries, SPEC Kit 174. Bailey, Charles W., Jr., and Judy E. Myers. Washington, DC: Association of Research Libraries, 1991.

In-depth treatments include:

Alberico, Ralph, and Mary Micco. Expert Systems For Reference and Information Retrieval. Westport: Meckler, 1990.

Aluri, Rao., and Donald E. Riggs, eds. Expert Systems in Libraries. Norwood, N.J.: Ablex, 1990.

You can get a sense of the AI activities in research libraries during this period by reading articles about the University of Houston Libraries' grant-funded Intelligent Reference Information System Project, which was prototyped in expert system shells and completed in Prolog. The Prolog code was freely distributed to over 500 libraries and other institutions (on floppy disk!).

Bailey, Charles W., Jr., and Robin N. Downes. "Intelligent Reference Information System (IRIS)," In 101 Success Stories of Information Technology in Higher Education: The Joe Wyatt Challenge," ed. Judith V. Boettcher, 402-407. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1993.

Bailey, Charles W., Jr. "The Intelligent Reference Information System Project: A Merger of CD-ROM LAN and Expert System Technologies." Information Technology and Libraries 11 (September 1992): 237-244.

Bailey, Charles W., Jr., and Thomas C. Wilson. "The Intelligent Reference Information System CD-ROM Network." In Library LANs: Case Studies in Practice and Application, ed. Marshall Breeding, 157-171. Westport, CT: Meckler, 1992.

Bailey, Charles W., Jr. "Building Knowledge-Based Systems for Public Use: The Intelligent Reference Systems Project at the University of Houston Libraries." In Convergence: Proceedings of the Second National Conference of the Library and Information Technology Association, October 2-6, 1988, ed. Michael Gorman, 190-194. Chicago: American Library Association., 1990.

Bailey, Charles W., Jr., and Kathleen Gunning. "The Intelligent Reference Information System." CD-ROM Librarian 5 (September 1990): 10-19.

Bailey, Charles W., Jr., Jeff Fadell, Judy E. Myers, and Thomas C. Wilson. "The Index Expert System: A Knowledge-Based System to Assist Users in Index Selection." Reference Services Review 17, no. 4 (1989): 19-28.

For an example of contemporaneous thinking about AI potentials among librarians, see:

Bailey, Charles W., Jr. "Intelligent Library Systems: Artificial Intelligence Technology and Library Automation Systems." In Advances in Library Automation and Networking, vol. 4, ed. Joe A. Hewitt, 1-23. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, 1991.

There has been very little activity in this area since the turn of the 21st century, but here's an example:

Ma, Wei. "A Database Selection Expert System Based on Reference Librarian's Database Selection Strategy: A Usability and Empirical Evaluation." Journal of the American Society for Information Science & Technology, 53 no. 7 (2002): 567-580.

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Associate Director for Academic and Community Engagement at MIT

MIT is recruiting an Associate Director for Academic and Community Engagement.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

The Associate Director reports to the Director of Libraries and is part of a highly collaborative and visionary senior leadership team, sharing responsibility for the overall direction and success of the libraries. The AD leads the Academic and Community Engagement Directorate of the MIT Libraries, with administrative responsibility for

  • Data and Specialized Services;
  • Information Delivery and Library Access;
  • Liaison, Instruction, and Reference Services;
  • The Lewis Music Library.

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