September 2024 – Page 2

Head of Digital Strategies and Services for Archives and Special Collections at Harvard University

Reporting to the Director of Technical Services for Archives and Special Collections, the Head of Digital Strategies and Services will lead a team dedicated to digitization, stewardship of born-digital content, and metadata and systems support for stakeholders in Harvard University Archives and Houghton Library. The Head will help create collaborative culture and communities of practice across Harvard Library’s AASC portfolio, which consists of the Fine Arts Library, Harvard Film Archive, Harvard University Archives, Houghton Library, and Loeb Music Library. The incumbent will contribute to strategic efforts to enhance discovery of and access to archives and special collections, including University records, through new digital platforms and services. They will lead efforts to enhance capacity for born-digital stewardship; oversee programmatic and patron-driven digitization; and work to enhance interoperability, accessibility, and usability within our systems infrastructure.

https://tinyurl.com/ytjwsrf9

Developing and Aligning Policies on Research Software: Recommendations for Research Funding and Research Performing Organisations

These recommendations contribute to a more robust policy framework for research software, recognising the important role of software in research. The document highlights research software as an emerging element of open science policies and practices, and makes recommendations to research funding and research performing organisations on developing and aligning policies related to research software based on existing good practices and other resources.

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13740999

Digital Initiatives Librarian at Supreme Court of the United States (10/04/2024 Deadline)

The Digital Initiatives Librarian is responsible for managing in-house digitization activities and digitized collections, acts as project manager and lead digitization specialist, and has primary responsibility for projects, components, and activities related to digitization. The Digital Initiatives Librarian provides technical guidance, training, and direction to frontline digitization staff, oversees activities performed by the unit and serves as subject matter expert and advisor to the Librarian of the Court, the Assistant Librarian for Technology & Collections Management and other Department Heads on digitization matters.

https://tinyurl.com/mtpr5hhr

"Research Assessment Systems and the Effects of Publication Language: Manifestations in the Directory of Open Access Books"

Research assessment is a major driver of research behavior. The current emphasis on journal citations in a limited number of journals with an English focus has multiple effects. The need to publish in English even when it is not the local language affects the type of research undertaken and further consolidates the Global North-centric view or scientific approach. The bibliometric databases on which assessments of universities and journals are based are owned by two large corporate organizations, and this concentration of the market has in turn concentrated the research environment. Open infrastructure offers an alternative option for the research endeavor. The OAPEN online open access library and the Directory of Open Access Books form part of this infrastructure and we consider the pattern of languages present in the directories over time.

https://doi.org/10.3998/jep.4847

Assistant Librarian for Electronic Resource Acquisition at Tufts University

The Librarian for Electronic Resource Acquisition will be responsible for managing the acquisitions process for electronic resources including journals, books, audio and video, and managing and analyzing usage data for subscription content. Reporting to the Head of Acquisitions, the librarian collaborates closely with staff in Metadata Services and Digital Initiatives to ensure timely access to electronic resources.

https://tinyurl.com/46pkr9jj

"How Balanced Is Multilingualism in Scholarly Journals? A Global Analysis Using the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) Database"

The concept of balanced multilingualism aims to establish “instruments for documenting and measuring the use of language for all the different purposes in research, thereby providing the basis for the monitoring of further globalization of research in a more responsible direction” (Sivertsen, 2018, p. 2). However, an analysis of the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), the largest database of fully open access journals produced in 130 countries, does not show balanced multilingualism in the global landscape. The DOAJ promotes linguistic diversity by indexing journals in 80 languages, including dialectal variations, indigenous languages, and languages spoken by less than 50,000 speakers (eg, Aragonese). In this article, we present the main trends related to the languages in which journals publish their full-text contributions to respond to this unbalanced landscape. We conducted a descriptive analysis of the 17,564 journals listed in the DOAJ (July 2023). Our findings show that 65% (11,331) of the journals listed publish only in one language, and 35% (6,234) publish in two, three, and up to 16 languages. Our research also shows that 50% of the multilingual journals are based in Asia, Southern and Eastern Europe, and Latin America.

https://doi.org/10.3998/jep.6448

Digital Archivist at Cornell University

Under the supervision of the Director for Archival Technical Services, the Digital Archivist is responsible for collecting and managing all born-digital and digitized archival assets, including identifying and implementing the infrastructure and standards-based workflows needed to support digital asset accessioning, description, preservation, and access.

https://tinyurl.com/3vymhsp5

" Responsible AI Practice in Libraries and Archives: A Review of the Literature "

Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to positively impact library and archives collections and services—enhancing reference, instruction, metadata creation, recommendations, and more. However, AI also has ethical implications. This paper presents an extensive literature and review analysis that examines AI projects implemented in library and archives settings, asking the following research questions: RQ1: How is artificial intelligence being used in libraries and archives practice? RQ2: What ethical concerns are being identified and addressed during AI implementation in libraries and archives? The results of this literature review show that AI implementation is growing in libraries and archives and that practitioners are using AI for increasingly varied purposes. We found that AI implementation was most common in large, academic libraries. Materials used in AI projects usually involved digitized and born digital text and images, though materials also ranged to include web archives, electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs), and maps. AI was most often used for metadata extraction and reference and research services. Just over half of the papers included in the literature review mentioned ethics or values related issues in their discussions of AI implementation in libraries and archives, and only one-third of all resources discussed ethical issues beyond technical issues of accuracy and human-in-the-loop. Case studies relating to AI in libraries and archives are on the rise, and we expect subsequent discussions of relevant ethics and values to follow suit, particularly growing in the areas of cost considerations, transparency, reliability, policy and guidelines, bias, social justice, user communities, privacy, consent, accessibility, and access. As AI comes into more common usage, it will benefit the library and archives professions to not only consider ethics when implementing local projects, but to publicly discuss these ethical considerations in shared documentation and publications.

https://tinyurl.com/2t6ykuyv

Business Systems Analyst, Library Systems at The J. Paul Getty Trust

Provide support for Alma, Ex Libris’ library management service platform

Provide support for ILLiad, OCLC and Atlas’ interlibrary loan application

Provide support for Springshare suite of library applications (LibApps)

Performs tasks related to library systems projects

https://tinyurl.com/3w9zpyez

"Early Access Customers Begin Testing the AI Metadata Assistant for Alma"

Ex Libris, part of Clarivate, is excited to announce that fourteen libraries are now Early Access testers of the new AI Metadata Assistant for the Alma library management platform. As Early Access testers library staff are taking an active role in the initial phase of development for the AI-powered solution which is being designed to help library catalogers in their work and save them time. . . .

The AI Metadata Assistant in the Alma Metadata Editor will reduce the work needed to research and search for information, freeing catalogers’ time to tackle more complex tasks, by suggesting metadata they can use when cataloging a resource. It’ll make record creation and enrichment easier, while keeping libraries and catalogers in full control of the data in their catalog. . . .

The AI Metadata Assistant development is being done in phases, to ensure it aligns with cataloguing standards, community needs, and metadata quality requirements. The initial phase is scheduled to be released to all Alma customers in the first quarter of 2025, with the possibility of an earlier release depending on the results of the Early Access phase.

https://tinyurl.com/3pkcashn

Digital Resources Archivist at Kansas State University

This full-time, tenure-track faculty position reports to the head of archives and special collections and leads efforts to preserve and provide access to born-digital and digitized content at the Libraries. The person in this role advises Libraries’ colleagues and university personnel on strategies and best practices relative to creating, preserving and providing access to digital resources.

https://tinyurl.com/2rscdm62

"’Does It Feel like a Scientific Paper?’: A Qualitative Analysis of Preprint Servers’ Moderation and Quality Assurance Processes"

In recent years, preprints—i.e., scholarly manuscripts that have not been peer reviewed or published in a journal—have emerged as a major source of research communication and a critical component of open science. However, concerns have been raised about preprints’ potential to facilitate the spread of flawed or misleading research due to the lack of quality control performed by preprint servers. Yet, there is limited knowledge of how servers currently vet incoming content and how this impacts the openness and diversity of scholarly content. In this paper, we examine preprint servers’ moderation processes, the intentions underpinning them, and their potential effects through a qualitative analysis of in-depth interviews with 14 key preprint server personnel. We find a wide range of moderation processes, which vary depending on specific server contexts and needs and are motivated by a desire to prevent the spread of misinformation and protect trust in preprints and servers. Participants repeatedly emphasized the difference between their moderation processes and peer review, but in practice often applied similar criteria for delineating scientific from unscientific content. Moreover, moderation processes often relied on trust cues, such as article formats or author affiliations, as proxies for research quality, potentially introducing similar biases as have been found in traditional journal peer review. We discuss implications for the diversity of preprint content and authors, as well as the future of preprint servers within an evolving scholarly communication ecosystem.

https://doi.org/10.31222/osf.io/mp6ky

Digital Archivist at University of Nebraska-Lincoln

The Digital Archivist will steward born digital records, proactively develop born digital collections across formats in collaboration with other archivists, create workflows and guidelines for public access to born digital materials, and develop pathways for all staff and faculty in the department to contribute to accessioning, processing, and/or providing access to born digital materials.

https://tinyurl.com/34w6xbue

"New Open Access Agreement Between the University of California and Taylor & Francis"

The University of California (UC) and Taylor & Francis today announced a memorandum of understanding for a four-year read and publish agreement that will make it easier and more affordable for UC researchers to publish open access (OA) articles in nearly 2,500 Taylor & Francis journals. . . .

Under the agreement, the UC Libraries will automatically cover the OA fees in full for any UC corresponding author who chooses to publish OA in Taylor & Francis and Routledge journals. Authors of articles accepted for publication in a hybrid or full OA title will have the opportunity to choose OA at no cost to them. . . .

To maximize the number of UC researchers who can benefit from the newly signed agreement, authors of qualifying articles published since January 1, 2024, will be given the opportunity to retrospectively convert their article to open access, with the OA fees fully covered. Authors who have already published OA since January 1 will be offered refunds for OA fees already paid.

https://tinyurl.com/y8zutk9m

Full Stack Web Developer at California Digital Library

The Full Stack Web Developer will design, build, and test new features for a variety of CDL’s Publishing, Archives, and Digitization services – including eScholarship, Online Archive of California, and Calisphere. Front-end development of these applications will involve technologies such as React, htmx, and vanilla JS. Back-end development will include Python and Ruby applications, with infrastructure running in AWS. As an enthusiastic member of a dynamic team, this developer will work both independently and with a small group committed to software development best practices, including continuous improvement through iteration, automation, and applying DevOps process.

https://tinyurl.com/3kfrvbt2

"People Cannot Distinguish GPT-4 from a Human in a Turing Test"

We evaluated 3 systems (ELIZA, GPT-3.5 and GPT-4) in a randomized, controlled, and preregistered Turing test. Human participants had a 5 minute conversation with either a human or an AI, and judged whether or not they thought their interlocutor was human. GPT-4 was judged to be a human 54% of the time, outperforming ELIZA (22%) but lagging behind actual humans (67%). The results provide the first robust empirical demonstration that any artificial system passes an interactive 2-player Turing test. The results have implications for debates around machine intelligence and, more urgently, suggest that deception by current AI systems may go undetected. Analysis of participants’ strategies and reasoning suggests that stylistic and socio-emotional factors play a larger role in passing the Turing test than traditional notions of intelligence.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.08007

Head of Library Systems & Technology at The Hoover Institution at Stanford

The Head of Library Systems & Technology, under the general direction of the Assistant Director, is responsible for defining and executing the strategic vision for library systems and technology. This role involves directing and managing resources, collaborating with stakeholders, and implementing innovative and sustainable solutions for the creation, management, and preservation of digital content. The Head ensures that all technology-based projects adhere to established specifications, standards, and deadlines. They work closely with Hoover Institution IT, Stanford IT, and third-party vendors to enhance services and expand online access to the Library & Archives’ digital collections.

https://tinyurl.com/398frxzn

Paywall: "An Experiment with the Use of ChatGPT for LCSH Subject Assignment on Electronic Theses and Dissertations"

The authors employed ChatGPT to generate subject headings for electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs) based on their titles and abstracts. The results suggest that LLMs such as ChatGPT have the potential to reduce the cataloging time needed for assigning subject terms from Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) for ETDs as well as to improve the discovery of this type of resource in academic libraries.

https://doi.org/10.1080/01639374.2024.2394516

CAEA Digital Collections Curator at University of Chicago

Reporting to the Associate Director of the Center for the Art of East Asia (CAEA) and in partnership with the CAEA Director, and Art History Faculty Chair, the CAEA Digital Collections Curator is responsible for managing, preserving, and promoting CAEA digital collections, including digitized materials, documents, photographs, etc. This role combines traditional curation expertise with modern digital technologies to ensure that collections are accessible, discoverable, and well-maintained for future use.

https://tinyurl.com/2bfy3s58

"We Need to Rethink the Way We Identify Diamond Open Access Journals in Quantitative Science Studies"

With the announcement of several new diamond open access (OA) related initiatives and the creation of the Global Summit on Diamond Open Access, diamond OA is now at the forefront of the OA movement. However, while working on our recent Quantitative Science Studies publication and datasets, we noticed that temporarily waiving article processing charges (APCs) was a commonly used strategy by big publishers for some of their journals. In the absence of an index of diamond journals, most studies have operationalized the identification of diamond journals as a subset of gold journals that do not charge an APC. While this is a pragmatic approach, we fear that it could undermine the value of the research in understanding what we believe is more commonly understood by diamond OA. This letter discusses the need for bibliometric research to apply more nuance in how it operationalizes diamond OA beyond the absence of APCs. We call on the publishing sector to be more transparent in the costs of publishing. Ultimately, we argue that transparency and a long-term commitment to no-APC publishing are necessary for diamond OA to succeed, and that the research community needs to apply this standard when seeking to understand the model.

https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_c_00331

"Clarivate Launches Generative AI-Powered Primo Research Assistant"

Key features include:

Semantic search and natural language queries: Users can interact with the system using everyday language, making the search process more intuitive.

AI-powered answers with references to sources used: The tool provides immediate answers based on the top five abstracts, with links to the full text and the complete result list.

Search suggestions: The assistant offers suggestions to help users expand their topics and delve deeper into their research.

Non-English query support: Users can ask questions and receive answers in multiple non-English languages.

https://tinyurl.com/bdcnbku3

Licensing Librarian at Georgetown University Medical Center

The Licensing Librarian focuses on electronic resource licensing through the entire resource lifecycle. This position supports renewals, licensing, and acquisitions for the over 25,000 items available electronically at Dahlgren Memorial Library (DML), including one-time and continuing purchases in support of the research, education, and patient care missions of the organization. The Licensing Librarian provides expertise and guidance to the community on the expanding options for open source/open access resources, including open access journals, books, software, databases, and other information tools.

https://tinyurl.com/yp6zwk32

"ISPs Tell Supreme Court They Don’t Want to Disconnect Users Accused of Piracy"

The Altice/Frontier/Lumen/Verizon brief [https://tinyurl.com/58yzp4z4]said the 4th Circuit ruling “imperils the future of the Internet” by “expos[ing] Internet service providers to massive liability if they do not carry out mass Internet evictions.” Cutting off a subscriber’s service would hurt other residents in a home “who did not infringe and may have no connection to the infringer,” they wrote.

The automated processes used by copyright holders to find infringement on peer-to-peer networks are “famously flawed,” ISPs wrote. Despite that, the appeals court’s “view of contributory infringement would force Internet service providers to cut off any subscriber after receiving allegations that some unknown person used the subscriber’s connection for copyright infringement,” the brief said.

https://tinyurl.com/2b5yw3m2

Digitization Coordinator at University of California, Irvine

The position manages digitization projects including formulating strategies and administering policies, processes, and resources.

The position serves as the primary point-person for digitization projects concerning Special Collections & Archives material and coordinates and facilitates production and ingest workflows according to established policies, licensing and intellectual property guidelines, and donor restrictions. Duties include implementing workflows, documentation of digital projects; training, scheduling, and supervising student workers; quality control of assets and metadata; and assisting with gathering, analyzing, and reporting statistics.

https://tinyurl.com/3c6xkypz

Plan S: "New Tool to Assess Equity in Scholarly Communication Models"

The tool [https://tinyurl.com/2crwwhes], which was inspired by the “How Open Is It?” framework, is targeted at institutions, library consortia, funders and publishers, i.e. the stakeholders either investing or receiving funds for publishing services. It offers users the opportunity to rate scholarly communication models and arrangements across seven criteria:

Access to Read

Publishing immediate Open Access

Maximizing participation

Re-use rights

Pricing and fee transparency

Promoting and encouraging open research practices: data and code

Promoting and encouraging open research practices: preprints and open peer review

https://tinyurl.com/ycwmp3nk