January 2024 – DigitalKoans

"Agile Research Data Management with Open Source: LinkAhead"

Research data management (RDM) in academic scientific environments increasingly enters the focus as an important part of good scientific practice and as a topic with big potentials for saving time and money. Nevertheless, there is a shortage of appropriate tools, which fulfill the specific requirements in scientific research. We identified where the requirements in science deviate from other fields and proposed a list of requirements which RDM software should answer to become a viable option. We analyzed a number of currently available technologies and tool categories for matching these requirements and identified areas where no tools can satisfy researchers’ needs. Finally we assessed the open-source RDMS (research data management system) LinkAhead for compatibility with the proposed features and found that it fulfills the requirements in the area of semantic, flexible data handling in which other tools show weaknesses.

https://doi.org/10.48694/inggrid.3866

Open Science Librarian at Utah State University

The Utah State University Libraries seeks a collaborative, innovative and user-centered candidate for the position of Open Science Librarian to join a team supporting our communities in discovering, creating, and sharing knowledge. Working with a team of librarians, the Open Science Librarian engages with students and faculty to support emerging open science and scholarly communication initiatives in all fields. This position also contributes to the Libraries’ scholarly communications team by developing skills and expertise with copyright.

http://tinyurl.com/2s4z2b7n

"Training Generative AI Models on Copyrighted Works Is Fair Use"

Why are scholars and librarians so invested in protecting the precedent that training AI LLMs on copyright-protected works is a transformative fair use? Rachael G. Samberg, Timothy Vollmer, and Samantha Teremi (of UC Berkeley Library) recently wrote that maintaining the continued treatment of training AI models as fair use is "essential to protecting research," including non-generative, nonprofit educational research methodologies like text and data mining (TDM). If fair use rights were overridden and licenses restricted researchers to training AI on public domain works, scholars would be limited in the scope of inquiries that can be made using AI tools. Works in the public domain are not representative of the full scope of culture, and training AI on public domain works would omit studies of contemporary history, culture, and society from the scholarly record, as Authors Alliance and LCA [Library Copyright Alliance] described in a recent petition to the US Copyright Office. Hampering researchers’ ability to interrogate modern in-copyright materials through a licensing regime would mean that research is less relevant and useful to the concerns of the day.

http://tinyurl.com/7jkyt2ae

Director of Digital Initiatives at University of Rochester Libraries

The Director of Digital Initiatives is responsible for the overall direction, development, and management of the River Campus Libraries’ (RCL) core and emerging digital infrastructure in support RCL’s strategic aims and the teaching, learning, and research mission of the University. Reporting to the Assistant/Associate Dean for Scholarly Resources and Curation, this position works closely with library administration, colleagues, and stakeholders to collaboratively envision and implement innovative services and technologies that underpin a wide range of programs and services. This role directs a team of nine to ensure the sustainable and effective operation of the Libraries’ core enterprise-systems, connections to/integrations with key University and vendor systems, and the development and implementation of new applications and services.

http://tinyurl.com/5zkv9esj

"RDA Professionalising Data Stewardship — What Does a Career Track for Data Stewards Look Like?"

The report "What does a career track for data stewards look like?" provides an initial discussion of the results of the RDA IG Professionalising Data Stewardship career tracks survey completed in 2022. The survey asked respondents who self-identified as performing data stewardship roles about their job titles, educational background, match between educational background and area of professional activity, contract types, as well as future career perspectives. The report is of value to international and national projects and initiatives seeking to define and develop the professional role of data stewards as well as to organizations employing data stewards that seek to define career progression pathways for data stewards and better job satisfaction and job security of data stewards. The report is also of value to the emerging communities of data stewards because it provides evidence base for understanding which professionals already fulfill data stewardship roles and how these professionals perceive their career paths.

https://zenodo.org/records/10571388

Scholarly Communication Librarian at Utah State University

The Scholarly Communication Librarian will support data literacy across the institution and provide expertise and guidance for managing, preserving, and sharing research data. Collaborating with library colleagues and groups across campus, including the Office of Research, this position will also help develop strategic initiatives and partnerships to promote open scholarship, including conducting outreach and providing training on topics such as research impact, open access, and open science.

http://tinyurl.com/5n9xzr29

"Could AI Change the Scientific Publishing Market Once and for All?"

Artificial-intelligence tools in research like ChatGPT are playing an increasingly transformative role in revolutionizing scientific publishing and re-shaping its economic background. They can help academics to tackle such issues as limited space in academic journals, accessibility of knowledge, delayed dissemination, or the exponential growth of academic output. Moreover, AI tools could potentially change scientific communication and academic publishing market as we know them. They can help to promote Open Access (OA) in the form of preprints, dethrone the entrenched journals and publishers, as well as introduce novel approaches to the assessment of research output. It is also imperative that they should do just that, once and for all.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.14952

Open Press Editorial Manager at University of Sussex

This is an exciting opportunity to help shape a new open access University Press from scratch. Following a highly successful12-month textbook pilot project, the Library is looking to expand its open publishing capacity; we’re keen to broaden our textbook offering and explore opportunities to develop a monograph imprint. The press is currently using the Pressbooks and OJS platforms.

http://tinyurl.com/27xu35xs

"Librarians as Agents of Change: New Sparc Europe Strategy for Open Education 2024-2026"

We are pleased to announce a new Open Education strategy for 2024-2026, Librarians as Agents of Change. We will support Higher Education policymakers, librarians, ambassadors and facilitators of OE in Europe to implement the UNESCO OER Recommendations using a targeted and action-oriented approach. With this strategy, we aim to make the many connections between Open Science policy and Open Education ever clearer to both policymakers and academic institutions.

http://tinyurl.com/mr45cv3f

Digital Archivist at Carnegie Mellon University

In this role, you will be responsible for developing, implementing, and maintaining the Carnegie Mellon University Archives’ born-digital program. This includes developing policies and procedures for accessioning, ingesting, preserving, managing, and providing access to electronic records; developing procedures and workflows for describing born-digital records within hybrid collections; managing web-archiving activities; and advising departments and donors on the management of electronic records.

https://apply.interfolio.com/139836

Ithaka S+R: The Second Digital Transformation of Scholarly Publishing

Today, the scholarly publishing sector is undergoing its second digital transformation. The first digital transformation saw a massive shift from paper to digital, but otherwise publishing retained many of the structures, workflows, incentives, and outputs that characterized the print era. A variety of shared infrastructure was developed to serve the needs of this first digital transformation. In this current second digital transformation, many of the structures, workflows, incentives, and outputs that characterized the print era are being revamped in favor of new approaches that bring tremendous opportunities, and also non-trivial risks, to scholarly communication. The second digital transformation requires shared infrastructure that is fit for purpose. It is our objective with this paper to examine the needs for shared infrastructure that will support this second digital transformation.

https://doi.org/10.18665/sr.320210

Bridge to Faculty Research Associate — Digital Publishing Librarian at University of Illinois Chicago (Term)

The Bridge to Faculty Digital Publishing Librarian will establish a research agenda during this time and work towards publishing their scholarship. There will be limited librarianship responsibilities and no service expectations during this year. The primary focus on research during this year is provided to ensure that the individual can establish a robust research agenda to support a possible transition to a tenure-track faculty position as Assistant Professor.

http://tinyurl.com/wm5rfp24

"Towards a Shared Framework: A Classificatory Matrix for Teaching Data Standards"

Standards for research data can be a mystifying topic for both researchers and data professionals. A common source of confusion is that they are multipurpose: standards can (and should) be applied to both primary data and metadata, enabling a wide range of functions from the search features in a repository to the integration of disparate data sources. This paper reviews examples of classificatory approaches used by both librarians and researchers to describe data standards. This literature is synthesized into a classificatory matrix that can be used to map different types of standards. The matrix is constructed around two organizing principles: purpose (finding or using data) and type of information controlled (meaning or syntax). The objective of this classificatory exercise is to encourage further discussion about the misunderstandings between researchers and data support professionals and to spur further development of the educational resources needed to improve understanding and use of data standards.

https://doi.org/10.7191/jeslib.758

Website Coordinator at University of Wyoming

Coordinate, develop, enhance, modify, and maintain websites and other digital marketing platforms for the University of Wyoming Libraries. Gather information from multiple sources and publish information on designated webpages using the University’s content management system (CMS) and third-party websites/platforms. Work with and assist UW Libraries website site authors in maintaining content. Manage and oversee UW Libraries website structure and strategically plan website additions. Identify and implement enhanced content opportunities to enhance the overall user experience using best practices in universal design principles and Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

http://tinyurl.com/bdenpru3

"Athena Jackson Named UCLA University Librarian"

Athena N. Jackson has been named UCLA’s Norman and Armena Powell University Librarian. Her appointment will begin March 1.

Jackson, the former director of special collections at UCLA Library, has served since 2021 as dean of libraries at the University of Houston, where she holds the Elizabeth D. Rockwell Chair. . . .

At the University of Houston, Jackson was responsible for oversight of the library’s administrative activities, a team of more than 125 and an annual budget of $21 million, providing programmatic and strategic leadership while playing a critical role in development activities. She was also active in open-scholarship dialogues at state and national levels, drawing on her rich background in rare and archival collections.

http://tinyurl.com/2u3j67p7

Director, Digital Services at Library of Congress

The Director, Digital Services Directorate is responsible for the Library’s digital collections, discovery, and metadata management services. In addition to stewarding and optimizing ongoing operations, the incumbent will lead a series of transformational changes, including the implementation of a new enterprise discovery, collection management, and metadata management system, and keystone elements of the Library’s ambitious Digital Collections Strategy (https://blogs.loc.gov/thesignal/2021/12/library-of-congress-digital-collections-strategy-published), as well as oversee established and impactful programs such as web archiving, crowdsourcing (https://crowd.loc.gov), collections digitization, workflow optimization, and problem solving.

http://tinyurl.com/36devvp7

"UC Berkeley Chooses Suzanne Wones as New University Librarian"

UC Berkeley has chosen a new University Librarian, Suzanne L. Wones, who is associate university librarian for discovery and access at Harvard Library. Wones, with 20 years’ experience as a leader in academic libraries, will start her new post July 1, following University Librarian Jeffrey MacKie-Mason’s retirement.

Berkeley’s commitment to open access— the free, immediate, online availability of research published in journals and books — attracted Wones to the position, as well as the many other ways the campus strives to remedy global inequities.

http://tinyurl.com/c58xn7c6

Metadata Librarian at University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus

Create metadata, maintain collections, and ingest digital collections materials for institutional repository;

Manage the institutional repository as part of the repository working group, and serve as the main contact person for the institutional repository; . . .

Serves as the department’s primary resource for non-MARC metadata standards;

Develop and coordinate best practices in providing holistic approach to metadata practices, and to ensure the interoperability and sustainability of metadata in library catalog, discovery system, and search engines;

http://tinyurl.com/3y2jtcke

"OASPA Members Pass the 1M Articles Annual Output Milestone for the First Time in a Calendar Year"

Members published just over 1.1m articles in 2022, passing the 1m articles annual output milestone for the first time. However, 2022 output grew by 16% over 2021, which is around one third of the long-term average. . . .

The top 3 publishers account for 53% of OASPA members’ output, the top 5 for 73% and the top 10 for 88% of it. This shows a slightly higher degree of consolidation compared with last year. We see greater levels of consolidation for CC BY licenses overall, and greater still for CC BY licenses published in fully-OA journals.

http://tinyurl.com/4988kbny

Libraries Resource Discovery & Management at University of Wyoming

The librarian will oversee and coordinate technical support for the library’s discovery platforms; will configure data and web services to integrate collections into discovery; will serve as a member of the electronic resources selection, procurement, and management team; and will use analytics and data-driven decision making to improve the patron experience

http://tinyurl.com/2ccurcut

"Are Open Bibliometric Data Sources Better than Proprietary Ones?"

The authors concluded that the resulting data based on open bibliometric sources was more comprehensive and of better quality than the data based on sources provided by the commercial provider. In addition, the use of open source data allows scidecode to comply with the requirement set by cOAlition S to openly licence their results, which would not necessarily be the case if they had used a commercial provider.

http://tinyurl.com/2btc8a76

Systems Librarian at Old Dominion University

he Systems Librarian will administer, configure, troubleshoot, and coordinate the integrated library system (Alma), discovery interface (Primo), and related applications, and they will ensure reliable and efficient access to the Libraries’ collections and resources.

https://jobs.odu.edu/postings/19772

"Open-Access Papers Draw More Citations from a Broader Readership"

Now, after years of little conclusive evidence to support these assertions, researchers report that open-access papers have a greater reach than paywalled ones in two key ways: They attract more total citations, and those citations come from scholars in a wider range of locations, institutions, and fields of research. The study also reports a "citation diversity advantage" for a controversial type of open-access article, those deposited in "green" public repositories.

http://tinyurl.com/27p6pfje

Librarian (Metadata) at Agricultural Research Service National Agricultural Library

Create, manage, and enhance metadata to organize and provide access to USDA-funded scientific research data.

Coordinate acquisition, description, cataloging, and loading workflows for digital media. Support the development of automated systems for technical processing in the area of metadata and/or bibliographic control.

Develop new and revised methods, techniques, and procedures for dealing with a wide array of cataloging workflow, library system usage and data flows that do not lend themselves to traditional approaches.

http://tinyurl.com/2kffnerj

"Decades of Transformation: Evolution of the NASA Astrophysics Data System’s Infrastructure"

The NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS) is the primary Digital Library portal for researchers in astronomy and astrophysics. Over the past 30 years, the ADS has gone from being an astronomy-focused bibliographic database to an open digital library system supporting research in space and (soon) earth sciences. This paper describes the evolution of the ADS system, its capabilities, and the technological infrastructure underpinning it.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.09685