Category: Research Libraries

"Elsevier and Council of Australian University Librarians Sign Agreement to Support Transition to Open Access Publishing Alongside Continued Research Access for Australia and New Zealand Researchers"


The three-year agreement addresses CAUL’s goals for a rapid and sustainable transition to open access publishing and represents the largest transformative agreement for both countries.

Under the agreement, which takes effect from January 2023, ANZ researchers at CAUL-affiliated academic institutions that participate in the agreement can make their research articles immediately available via open access publishing in Elsevier’s journals.

https://cutt.ly/BMQRgeL

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"Perspectives on E-books and Digital Textbooks and the Way Ahead"


This article presents a range of perspectives on current issues around e-book and textbook supply and consumption in libraries and universities. It is an attempt to provide an analysis of the often-contentious issues arising and also offers an insight into the positions of all the various parties involved. Whilst there might not be agreement or consensus on the causes of issues and the way to proceed, the article attempts to coalesce various perspectives, in the hope of achieving a greater understanding of different stakeholders. Much of the debate in recent years has focused on the situation in the United Kingdom, but similar issues exist in many other countries and an insight into the international perspective is provided. We also offer some commentary on ways forward for both the short and longer term.

http://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.599

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"Research Data Management Needs Assessment of Clemson University"


The faculty, staff, and graduate students at Clemson University were surveyed by the library about their RDM needs in the spring of 2021. The survey was based on previous surveys from 2012 and 2016 to allow for comparison, but language was updated, and additional questions were added because the field of RDM has evolved. Survey findings indicated that researchers are overall more likely to back up and share their data, but the process of cleaning and preparing the data for sharing was an obstacle. Few researchers reported including metadata when sharing or consulting the library for help with writing a Data Management Plan (DMP). Researchers want RDM resources; offering and effectively marketing those resources will enable libraries to both support researchers and encourage best practices. Understanding researcher needs and offering time-saving services and convenient training options makes following RDM best practices easier for researchers. Outreach and integrated partnerships that support the research life cycle are crucial next steps for ensuring effective data management.

https://doi.org/10.31274/jlsc.13970

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Paywall: The Data Literacy Cookbook


The Data Literacy Cookbook includes a variety of approaches to and lesson plans for teaching data literacy, from simple activities to self-paced learning modules to for-credit and discipline-specific courses. . . . Many sections have overlapping learning outcomes, so you can combine recipes from multiple sections to whip up a scaffolded curriculum. The Data Literacy Cookbook provides librarians with lesson plans, strategies, and activities to help guide students as both consumers and producers in the data life cycle.

https://cutt.ly/XMhHEts

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Paywall: "Expanding Your Institutional Repository: Librarians Working with Faculty"


Since a successful institutional repository will contain a higher percentage of the contributors’ materials, we implemented a system to upload faculty publications more effectively to our academic library’s institutional repository.. . . The success of this method is indicated by the increase in articles that have been uploaded to our institutional repository; as a result of the implementation of this program, the number of publications in our university’s institutional repository by these authors has increased 174 %.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2022.102628

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Investments in Open: Association of Research Libraries US University Member Expenditures on Services, Collections, Staff, and Infrastructure in Support of Open Scholarship


In total, 46 of the 102 institutions provided full or partial results. Summary results are divided into the following categories: read-and-publish or transitional agreements, article processing charges (APC) or OA funds, non-APC-based OA publishing models, institutional repository services, OA journal hosting and publishing services, and open monographs.

The survey found that the total aggregate spending on open access for all 46 responding libraries was $32 million USD, with an average expenditure per institution of $785,940. This represents an average of 2.26% of the total library budget spent on open, ranging from 0.19% to 11.02% across respondent libraries. As a portion of the total amount of expenses spent on OA infrastructure, the majority of funds are invested in read-and-publish agreements (~$20 million) followed by institutional repository infrastructure with investments of 17% of total OA expenses (~$5 million) across the 46 institutions.

https://cutt.ly/nMuAMbT

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"Scholarly Communication Competencies: An Analysis of Confidence among Australasia Library Staff"


Through a nationwide survey of universities and research organizations in Australia and New Zealand, this article investigates the level of confidence that librarians working in scholarly communication have in their current competencies. The results show that, while respondents were generally confident across seven competency areas (institutional repository management, publishing services, research practice, copyright services, open access policies and scholarly communication landscape, data management services, and assessment and impact metrics), the majority combined their scholarly communication tasks with other roles.

https://doi.org/10.5860/crl.83.6.966

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"Library Publishing Coalition Releases 2021-2022 Annual Report"


In addition to outlining the LPC’s finances, assets, and membership, the Annual Report highlights several programmatic milestones, including:

  • Deliverables from the Library Publishing Workflows project
  • A landscape scan undertaken by the Preservation Task Force
  • The launch of a joint project between LPC, ARL, and AUP to build connections between university-based publishing communities.

https://cutt.ly/eNDIWtC

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"An AI Toolkit for Libraries"


Now that artificial intelligence (AI) tools are being widely used across academic publishing, how can we make informed assessments of these utilities? There is a need for a set of skills for evaluating new tools and measuring existing ones, which should enable anyone commissioning or managing AI utilities to understand what questions to ask, what parameters to measure and possible pitfalls to avoid when introducing a new utility. The skills required are not technical. Potential problems include bias in the corpus, a poor training set or poor use of metrics for evaluation. This article gives a quick overview of some of areas where AI tools are being used and how they work. It then provides a checklist for assessment. The goal is not to discredit AI, but to make effective use of it.

http://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.592

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"Just Released – New Insights into OE in European Libraries of Higher Education 2022"


The report presents the findings of the third edition of our annual survey of European academic libraries on the topic of Open Education (OE) and Open Educational Resources (OER). It explores the work being done by European academic librarians to implement the UNESCO OER Recommendation, almost three years on from its initial publication in November 2019.

https://cutt.ly/HNRUoNW

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First Issue of the Journal of Open Educational Resources in Higher Education Published


We are pleased to present the inaugural issue of the Journal of Open Educational Resources in Higher Education (JOERHE). As academic librarians, the three of us intersect with Open Educational Resources, open access, and open publishing in a variety of ways. Drawing on our past experiences with both traditional and open publishing models, we saw a need to create a dedicated, open scholarly space for those who wish to engage in community and scholarly conversation about all things open. It is exciting to see this idea come to fruition. JOERHE’s vision is to reduce the barriers to publication and create a space where authors, reviewers, and readers can build a community that supports and encourages the growth of the profession through kindness to one another as scholars. We also seek to provide transparency in our publishing practices through clear and frequent communication with our authors, reviewers, and readers.

https://cutt.ly/lNRWsd7

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Paywall: "A New Decade of Uses for Geographic Information Systems (GIS) As a Tool to Research, Measure and Analyze Library Services"


The purpose of this paper is to explore library research that uses geographic information systems (GIS) as a tool to evaluate library services and resources to ascertain current trends and establish future directions for this growing research area.

https://doi.org/10.1108/LHT-03-2020-0052

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"Lessons Learned from Reevaluating Big Deals with Unsub"


The value of big deals is increasingly unclear. This article briefly discusses factors others have considered in evaluating big deals and covers the four factors that should be considered moving forward: open access, interlibrary loan, post-termination access, and a-la-carte costs. Unsub, a tool for reevaluating big deals created by the nonprofit OurResearch, is introduced. Lessons learned are shared from two years of helping libraries reevaluate big deals to provide insight into the complexities and tradeoffs involved in evaluating big deals across many libraries.

https://doi.org/10.1080/00987913.2022.2132090

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"How Open Is the U15? A Preliminary Analysis of Open Access Publishing in Canadian Academic Libraries"


Introduction: This study offers insight into open access (OA) culture at Canadian university libraries by detailing the degree to which librarians working at Canada’s U15 (a collective of research-intensive institutions in Canada) make their research OA, as well as exploring the depth and reach of any OA mandates these institutions have. Method: This study uses a combination of bibliometric analysis and a review of institutional OA policies, beginning with an examination of a six-year span (2014–2019) of librarian-authored publications, searching four key library and information science databases, followed by a systematic search for a university-wide or library OA statement, policy, or mandate on each of the U15 websites. Results & Discussion: The data suggest that Canadian academic librarians are personally motivated to self-archive and make their research open. The high rate of publication in Gold OA journals, combined with the fact that several of the key library and information science journals for Canadian librarians are already OA, points to the importance of OA publishing for librarians as a community, as does the high number of expressions of commitment to OA publishing. Given the lack of variance comparatively between schools with an expression and without, the authors cannot comment on whether the expressions of support correlate to higher proportions of OA articles. Conclusion: This article provides a snapshot of a positive OA publishing culture at 15 Canadian university libraries by presenting data that show that most libraries have an expression of commitment to OA principles and most Canadian academic librarians working at U15 schools ensure that their research is OA.

https://doi.org/10.31274/jlsc.13831

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"An Assessment of Research Data Services through Client Interaction Records"


Research data services have become a key feature of academic libraries. In this paper, we provide an internal assessment of consulting reach and effectiveness for our Data Services provided by the University Libraries at Virginia Tech and using client records from 2016 to 2020. Through this assessment, we explore how service growth and reach across Virginia Tech has evolved with time. We also look more closely at these aspects for one college and discuss how we will use this data to assess the impact of our services. Finally, through the lens of client outcomes, we examine the trends of client interactions over the term of the study. Initially, we envisioned a successful service as one useful to the largest number of entities (primarily colleges and institutes) across Virginia Tech. However, analysis of the data we have gathered over the past 4 years leads us to consider target ing our service growth where it might be most useful. Rather than prioritizing services that are useful to the largest number of researchers, we instead could (and perhaps should) prioritize engagement with researchers and research communities for whom our assistance can make the largest positive impact on their research projects. This assessment of our client data demonstrates the utility of detailed client management records for periodic formative and summative assessment of research data services.

https://doi.org/10.31274/jlsc.14439

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"The Challenging State of University Campus and Library Open Access Policies"


Introduction: This study investigates whether United States university libraries’ commitment to increasing open access (OA) to scholarly outputs as demonstrated by their support of campus level OA policies translates into adoption of OA policies that apply specifically to library employees. Method: This mixed-methods study used an anonymous survey and optional open-ended interviews of scholarly communications librarians at Carnegie Classification Doctoral Universities (Very High Research [R1] and High Research [R2]) to gather information about OA policies or statements at their institutions and/or within their libraries. Results & Discussion: Variation in campus culture and governance structure meant the path from creation to adoption to implementation of a campus and/or library OA policy was similarly varied. The research reveals librarians’ motivations for and contributions to advancement of OA on their campuses, and sometimes also within their libraries. Conclusion: Many of the rationales driving adoption of campus OA policies similarly drive adoption of library-specific OA policies. Those surveyed whose institutions did have library-based OA policies referenced both the importance of leading by example and alignment with institutional mission and values.

https://doi.org/10.31274/jlsc.13049

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"Five Ways to Optimize Open Access Uptake after a Signed Read and Publish Contract: Lessons Learned from the Dutch UKB Consortium"


Consortia and publishers invest a lot of time and expertise in the negotiation process. A well-drafted read and publish contract is, however, not enough to guarantee an optimal open access publishing service. The Dutch UKB consortium uses several tools and practices to actively monitor and manage open access uptake during an agreement. Library help desks are provided with a knowledge base covering most frequently asked questions from authors. A journal list gives an integral overview of the more than 11,000 journals that are part of 16 consortium deals. Because researchers wanted to know about open access publishing possibilities from a journal perspective, a journal browser was developed. Workflow improvement and retrospective open access are regular topics in mid-term meetings with publishers, resulting in increased open access uptake. A purpose-built datahub provides the consortium and libraries with publication data that helps monitoring and managing output on both article and deal level. Finally, licence choice including funder compliance is taken into account, resulting in an increasing percentage of CC BY versus the more restricted CC BY-NC and CC BY-NC-ND options.

http://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.595

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Paywall: "A Perspective on Computational Research Support Programs in the Library: More than 20 Years of Data from Stanford University Libraries"


Presentation of data is a major component to academic research. However, programming languages, computational tools, and methods for exploring and analyzing data can be time consuming and frustrating to learn and finding help with these stages of the broader research process can be daunting. In this work, we highlight the impacts that computational research support programs housed in library contexts can have for fulfilling gaps in student, staff, and faculty research needs. The archival history of one such organization, Software and Services for Data Science (SSDS) in the Stanford University Cecil H. Green Library, is used to outline challenges faced by social sciences and humanities researchers from the 1980s to the present day.

https://doi.org/10.1177/09610006221124619

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UC Davis: " University Librarian and Vice Provost of Digital Scholarship MacKenzie Smith to Retire in June 2023"


“MacKenzie has led our library during a period of transformative change in how scholars create, access and share research,” said Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Mary Croughan. “She has made substantial contributions to the campus’s research enterprise at every level, from data science and informatics to the establishment of an undergraduate library research prize. MacKenzie has also elevated our library’s leadership role, within UC and far beyond, in advancing free and open access to research. We will miss her leadership and collaboration, but wish her all the best in her retirement.”

https://cutt.ly/yBQnEcD

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"OpenStack Swift: An Ideal Bit-Level Object Storage System for Digital Preservation "


A bit-level object storage system is a foundational building block of long-term digital preservation (LTDP). To achieve the purposes of LTDP, the system must be able to: preserve the authenticity and integrity of the original digital objects; scale up with dramatically increasing demands for preservation storage; mitigate the impact of hardware obsolescence and software ephemerality; replicate digital objects among distributed data centers at different geographical locations; and to constantly audit and automatically recover from compromised states. . . . In this paper, we present OpenStack Swift, an open-source, mature and widely accepted cloud platform, as a practical and proven solution with a case study at the University of Alberta Library. We emphasize the implementation, application, cost analysis and maintenance of the system, with the purpose of contributing to the community with an exceedingly robust, highly scalable, self-healing and comparatively cost-effective bit-level object storage system for long-term digital preservation.

https://doi.org/10.2218/ijdc.v17i1.782

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"OIF’s Workbook of Privacy Best Practices for Libraries"

"Written by library privacy experts and based on input and guidance from a wide cross-section of stakeholders, The Ultimate Privacy Field Guide: A Workbook of Best Practices is structured to give library workers the tools needed to create and be advocates for privacy-protecting practices and policies. Published by ALA Editions in collaboration with ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF), it’s designed for use in school, public, and academic settings of all types and sizes."

https://cutt.ly/RBuJEzH

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"Accessibility and Disability Services for Libraries: A Survey of Large, Research-Intensive Institutions"

"This article summarizes the results of a survey of Association of Research Libraries (ARL) institutions in October 2020 related to what services the library provides, whether they have changed due to campus or state requirements, which positions within libraries provide support, and what the impetus was for offering services. The authors also discuss implications for scalable support of disability and accessibility services at university libraries."

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/866298

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"Going Qual In: Towards Methodologically Inclusive Data Work in Academic Libraries"

https://cutt.ly/EV9wSla

"In this paper, we report on the results of interviews with academic librarians about their understanding of data literacy, qualitative research, and academic library infrastructure around qualitative research. From the interviews, we propose a model of data literacy that incorporates both interpretive and instrumental elements. We conclude with suggestions for incorporating qualitative data and analysis methods into academic library programming and services around data literacy and research data."

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"Developing Data Literacy: How Data Services and Data Fellowships Are Creating Data Skilled Social Researchers"

https://cutt.ly/VV9wBEF

"This paper describes two successful approaches to quantitative data literacy training within the UK and the synergies and collaborations between these two programmes. The first is a data literacy training programme, being delivered by the UK Data Service, which focuses on training in basic data literacy skills. The second is a Data Fellows programme that has been developed to help undergraduate social science students gain real-world experience by applying their classroom skills in the workplace."

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