ARL Libraries – Page 3

"Realities of Academic Data Sharing (RADS) Initiative Releases Reports on Expenses of Making Data Publicly Accessible, Project Methodology"

This report presents data on the average yearly cost of DMS activities for institutional units, as well as direct DMS expenses incurred by researchers per funded research project. These expenses were then analyzed together, showing an average combined overall cost of $2,500,000 (with total institutional expenses ranging from approximately $800,000 to over $6,000,000).

http://tinyurl.com/5xsw32we

"The University of North Carolina Selects Ex Libris Library Solutions"

As part of its transition to Ex Libris library platforms, UNC will implement:

Alma and Primo

Leganto, Ex Libris’ course resource management system

Library Mobile, Ex Libris’ integrated mobile library app and

Rapido, Ex Libris’ interlibrary loan system

http://tinyurl.com/rvumvpeh

"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

"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

H. Carton Rogers III Vice Provost and Director of Libraries at University of Pennsylvania

The Director will be a visionary, collegial, entrepreneurial, and courageous leader who will nurture, sustain, and extend the record of strength established by Penn Libraries and its personnel. This is a liminal moment for the University and the Libraries: a new university strategic framework, In Principle and Practice, was released in Fall 2023 and sets forth a vision of an institution anchored in the campus, local, and global communities; interwoven and interconnected; inventive in confronting society’s great challenges and opportunities; and engaged in service and collaboration. The Libraries themselves are in the midst of a strategic plan for building technical, structural, and human capacity, which includes a digital strategic plan that presents a broad vision to plan, implement, scale, and sustain digital technologies and practices.

http://tinyurl.com/zyc7cxvj

"ARL Statistics 2022 Publications Describe Resources, Services of Member Libraries"

These three publications present information describing the collections, staffing, expenditures, and service activities of 123 of the Association’s 126 member libraries in 2022. Of these 123 members, 118 are university libraries (16 in Canada and 102 in the US); the remaining 5 are governmental, nonprofit, and public research libraries in the US. The law and health sciences publications focus on the 72 law libraries and 57 medical libraries among the Association’s membership that completed the law and health sciences surveys.

https://tinyurl.com/mrxaej4e

"ARL Annual Salary Survey 2022 Reports Data on Professional Positions in Member Libraries"

The median salary for professionals in US ARL university libraries in 2022 was $80,454, an increase of 4.0% over the 2021 median salary of $77,353. The US CPI rose 8.5% during the same period. The Canadian CPI rose 7.6%, and median salaries in Canadian university libraries increased 1.9% from $105,431 (Canadian dollars) to $107,426 (Canadian dollars). The median salary for US federal, nonprofit, and public ARL libraries decreased by 11.3 from $90,197 in 2021 to $80,009 in 2022.

https://tinyurl.com/bdzjh3ex

NYU: "From Silos to Community: The Path to a Holistic Digital Preservation Policy"

While New York University Libraries has a long history of and commitment to digital collecting and preservation efforts, the institution did not have any policies governing the services and activities of digital preservation prior to 2022. This paper details the creation of a holistic digital preservation policy statement, with contributors from across ten functional units at NYU Libraries. The policy was grounded in the Libraries’ mission and values–including deep commitments to inclusion, diversity, belonging, equity, and accessibility–and drew on themes crafted by all members of the group to ensure their work was represented in the statement. The success of the policy group was rooted in its intentional formation and processes that acknowledged the distributed nature of digital preservation and emphasized the creation of a community of practice. Further, it laid the foundation for a more complete suite of preservation policies and forward-looking conversations about how to enact ethical and sustainable stewardship in digital collecting, access, and preservation practices

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/items/128309

Paywall: "FAST Headings in MODS: Michigan State University Libraries Digital Repository Case Study"

Since 2016, the [MSUL] digital repository has been using Faceted Application of Subject Terminology (FAST) subject headings as its primary subject vocabulary. . . The MSUL FAST use case presents some challenges that are not addressed by existing MARC-focused FAST tools. This paper will outline the MSUL digital repository team’s justification for including FAST headings in the digital repository as well as workflows for adding FAST headings to Metadata Object Description Schema (MODS) metadata, their maintenance, and utilization for discovery.

https://doi.org/10.1080/01639374.2023.2213708

| Research Data Publication and Citation Bibliography | Research Data Sharing and Reuse Bibliography | Research Data Curation and Management Bibliography | Digital Scholarship |

"New Vice Provost for UW–Madison Libraries Chosen"

Erla P. Heyns, associate professor and associate dean for learning at Purdue University Libraries and School of Information Studies in West Lafayette, Ind., has been selected as the next university librarian and vice provost for University Libraries. She will join the University of Wisconsin–Madison campus on Jan. 1, 2024. Heyns has been with Purdue University since 2016. Previously, she was at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, serving as the director of the Flower/Sprecher Veterinary Library and the coordinator for the engineering, math and physical sciences libraries. Before that, she was the head of Indiana University’s Health, Physical Education and Recreation Library.

https://tinyurl.com/44met6bt

| Research Data Publication and Citation Bibliography | Research Data Sharing and Reuse Bibliography | Research Data Curation and Management Bibliography | Digital Scholarship |

Paywall: "Trends in Research Impact Librarianship: Developing a New Program and Services"

Research impact librarianship is an area within the profession that continues to grow out of need for dedicated expertise of bibliometrics and other various assessment measures.. . . The Libraries at the University of Houston is in the midst of creating a research visibility and impact program born out of an initiative to elevate the university’s level of prestige and impact by developing personnel, programs, and practices to support research visibility and impact across the institution. This article discusses the University of Houston Libraries’ process and progress toward formalizing research impact services.

https://doi.org/10.1080/01930826.2023.2262364

"UC Berkeley Library to Copyright Office: Protect Fair Uses in AI Training for Research and Education"

If the Copyright Office were to enable rightsholders to opt-out of training AI for research and teaching fair uses, then academic institutions and scholars would face even greater hurdles in licensing content for research purposes. It would be operationally difficult for academic publishers and content aggregators to amass and license the "leftover" body of copyrighted works that remain eligible for AI training. Costs associated with publishers’ efforts in compiling "AI-training-eligible" content would be passed along as additional fees charged to academic libraries, who are already financially constrained to preserve TDM and other fair uses for scholars. In addition, rightsholders might opt out of allowing their work to be used for AI training fair uses, and then turn around and charge AI usage fees to scholars (or libraries)—essentially licensing back fair uses for research. These scenarios would impede scholarship by or for research teams who lack grant or institutional funds to cover these additional expenses; penalize research in or about underfunded disciplines or geographical regions; and result in bias as to the topics and regions studied.

https://tinyurl.com/5cd2vc85

Paywall: "Implementing a Rules-Based Chatbot for Reference Service at a Large University Library"

While some chatbots or virtual assistants generate automatic and custom responses to user input, this paper explores the implementation of a rules-based chatbot, where all responses have been input and configured by library staff. Details are provided to describe the process before, during, and after the initial implementation with data and observations from the pilot in mid-2023.

https://doi.org/10.1080/19322909.2023.2268832

"USC Press and University Libraries Launch Open-Access Publishing Platform"

The University of South Carolina Press and University Libraries are embarking on a new collaborative venture: Open Carolina, an open-access publishing platform. . . .

Many ventures into open scholarly resources are planned as temporary pilot operations because they are funded by time-limited grant pools. Thanks to consistent funding from the Libraries, Open Carolina has a sustainable model that will allow scholars with limited publishing funds to share their research via the platform, partially or totally foregoing associated fees. In its inaugural year, the Libraries aim to fund four full-length books and support is in place to make the program sustainable for years to come and allow Open Carolina to grow steadily.

Open Carolina will offer opportunities to a wide range of scholars and researchers regardless of university affiliation.

https://tinyurl.com/yn7zd3ta

University Librarian at University of California, Berkeley

Comprising 22 libraries, the UC Berkeley Library has one of the world’s most comprehensive academic research collections, from the trove of primary documents chronicling the West at Bancroft Library, to the collaborative and innovative spaces at the Moffitt Library, to the vast and unparalleled collections at Doe Library — a beacon of information standing in the shadow of the iconic Campanile. Together, these libraries help sustain UC Berkeley as a leading producer of knowledge. The Library holds more than 13 million volumes in its world-renowned collections. Materials include paintings, lithographs, papyri, audio and video recordings, and ephemera such as leaflets from the Free Speech Movement, a note from Helen Keller to Mark Twain in honor of his 70th birthday, and vintage costumes worn by Berkeley’s beloved mascot, Oski. The Center for Connected Learning, a "collider space" where students will have access to one-stop consultation on retrieval, evaluation, and use of advanced information resources and will acquire skills required for 21st century information literacy will soon be open in Moffitt Library.

https://tinyurl.com/3368pf5k

Washington University Libraries: "New Grant to Preserve Born-Digital Poetry"

The Washington University Libraries were awarded a two-year grant by the Mellon Foundation to support an exploration of essential questions surrounding the acquisition, discoverability, preservation, and use of born-digital poetry collections. The $250,000 award will enable the University Libraries to develop online resources and systems to process, preserve, and steward the collections of a new generation of digital-native poets. . . .

The first of its kind to focus on issues of acquisition, preservation, and wider access to born-digital materials, the project will process a wide range of digital materials from the archive of poet and academic Mary Jo Bang. Consequently, the project will eventually make it possible for students and researchers to access born-digital collections and gain a better understanding and insight into the unprecedented ways in which poetry is created in a digital era. The project also aims to lay the foundation for new benchmarks and guidelines on preservation and access to born-digital archives at libraries and museums and for personal poetry archives.

https://tinyurl.com/3baahaj5

"USC Appoints Alumna Melissa Just as New Dean of Libraries"

Library veteran Melissa Just has been named USC’s new dean of libraries, effective Nov. 27. Just — a Trojan who received her doctoral degree from the USC Rossier School of Education in 2007 and spent several years early in her career at USC Libraries — has worked in academic libraries for nearly three decades.

Just, who will hold the Valerie and Ronald Sugar Dean’s Chair of the USC Libraries, joins the university following 6½ years as library dean at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Canada. In that role, she oversaw the strategic, fiscal and operational success of a library system serving 26,000 students and 1,000 faculty across 17 colleges, schools and professional programs.

https://tinyurl.com/37mb2cz4

"Wayne State Names Paul Bracke Dean of School of Information Sciences and University Libraries"

Paul Bracke has been selected to serve as the next dean of the Wayne State University School of Information Sciences (SIS) and University Libraries. . . . Bracke will join Wayne State on Oct. 16, 2023.

Bracke is currently dean of the Foley Center Library, the primary library for Gonzaga University’s Spokane, Washington, campus, a position he has held since 2016. For the last two years, he has also served as associate provost for the Institute for Research and Interdisciplinary Initiatives. . . .

Bracke was previously an associate dean at the Purdue University Libraries. At Purdue, he provided leadership in technology, digitization, research services and assessment and developed internationally recognized research support services, including data management services and institutional and data repositories. He also directed projects that explored the intersections of digitization and open access publishing and of digitization and scholarly workflows in the social sciences.

https://tinyurl.com/2b5379yc

Executive Director at Association of Research Libraries

The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) seeks a highly strategic and innovative thoughtful leader, who will effectively collaborate with the ARL membership to advance the Association’s aspirations, strategic goals, and commitments in line with its mission, vision, and values. As a thought leader and consensus-builder on the ways in which universities and other research institutions create, integrate, preserve, and disseminate knowledge, the new Executive Director must be a persuasive, influential champion, and advocate of efforts to build sustainable models of scholarly communication. The Executive Director must also advocate for important public policy issues facing its membership in the 21st century and to sustain and enhance research library services in support of ARL member institutional missions.

https://tinyurl.com/y7vchytk

"ARL Awarded Grant to Continue Research on Institutional Expenses for Public Access to Research Data"

The US Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) has awarded the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), in collaboration with Duke University, the University of Minnesota, and Washington University in St. Louis, all of whom are members of the Data Curation Network (DCN), a $741,921 National Leadership Grant to examine institutional expenses for public access to research data. This research builds upon ARL’s existing Realities of Academic Data Sharing initiative.

https://tinyurl.com/378dzab6

"Association of Research Libraries and California Digital Library Receive Grant to Advance Data Management and Sharing"

The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) and the California Digital Library (CDL) have received a $668,048 National Leadership Grant from the US Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) to assist institutions in managing and sharing federally funded research data. This project will build a machine-actionable data-management plan (maDMP) tool by enhancing and developing new DMPTool features utilizing persistent identifiers (PIDs). CDL and ARL will work together to further strengthen institutional capacity for tracking research outputs by piloting the institutional integration of maDMPs across an academic campus and building community across institutions for maDMPs.

https://tinyurl.com/35x9d45z

| Research Data Publication and Citation Bibliography | Research Data Sharing and Reuse Bibliography | Research Data Curation and Management Bibliography | Digital Scholarship |

Less Than 50% Have Web Usability PSGs: "Web Usability Practice at ARL Academic Libraries "

Expanding on previous research, the authors applied quantitative and qualitative methods to investigate Web usability policies, standards, and guidelines (PSGs); resources; and usability testing, including mobile testing and usability laboratories, at the academic members of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL). Survey results indicated that less than 50 percent of the libraries have Web usability PSGs. The perceived importance of usability testing has a significantly positive correlation with the testing performed, ARL ranking, mobile website testing, and availability of usability laboratories. Limited resources hindered initiatives aimed at improving usability.

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/901567

Vice-Provost & Chief Librarian at Western University

Western Libraries is the fourth-largest academic library system in Canada and is dedicated to supporting research, teaching, and learning at Western. Western Libraries comprises five libraries and three centres distributed across the University campus and is a member of the Ontario Council of University Libraries, the Canadian Association of Research Libraries, and the Association of Research Libraries. Recognized for the quality of its staff, the access and services provided, and its outstanding collections — which include over eleven million items in print, microform, and various other formats, as well as online access to tens of thousands of digital resources — Western Libraries supports the University’s mission of providing the best student experience among Canada’s leading research-intensive universities.

https://tinyurl.com/uptyhsvh

Michigan State: "Neil Romanosky Recommended as Dean of MSU Libraries"

Romanosky currently serves as dean of university libraries at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, a position he has held since 2019. His accomplishments in this role include developing a strategic plan for the libraries with a focus on diversity, equity and inclusion; overseeing the alignment of the Ohio University Press and five regional campus libraries into the university libraries portfolio; working with campus partners to launch libraries-led, university-wide task forces on research data management and improving student study spaces; and spearheading Ohio University’s joining the HathiTrust, allowing for expanded university access to digital collections and other collaborative academic and research tools and services.

https://tinyurl.com/fuy6xtfy

"The State of the Field: An Excerpt From the 2023 Library Publishing Directory"

The most common material types reported in 2023 were journals (89%), conference papers and proceedings (80%), theses and dissertations (75%), educational resources (66%), and monographs (60%). Under half of respondents (46%) reported publishing datasets. Other material types reported include gray literature, newsletters, multimedia, expansive digital publications, and databases. . . . Over 80% of respondents provide copyright support and DOI assignment. Over half provide metadata services (71%), author advisory services (66%), training (66%), ISSN registry (64%), hosting of supplemental content (60%), cataloging (56%), and analytics (55%). The decline in the number of library publishers providing digitization services holds steady with 49% of respondents in 2023 identifying it as one of their services.

https://tinyurl.com/yhwp4pph

Access the entire directory.