Category: Research Libraries

Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem: "Cornell Joins TOME Open Monograph Initiative as 15th University Member"

ARL has released "Cornell Joins TOME Open Monograph Initiative as 15th University Member."

Here's an excerpt:

The Association of American Universities (AAU), the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), and the Association of University Presses (AUPresses) welcome Cornell University to the Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem initiative. This pilot effort aims to support the digital publication of peer-reviewed scholarly books by participating university presses, allowing the free publication of these works online and broadly improving access to these works by scholars and the public.

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"Roles and Jobs in the Open Research Scholarly Communications Environment: Analysing Job Descriptions to Predict Future Trends"

Nancy Pontika has published "Roles and Jobs in the Open Research Scholarly Communications Environment: Analysing Job Descriptions to Predict Future Trends" in LIBER Quarterly.

Here's an excerpt:

During the past two-decades academic libraries updated current staff job responsibilities or created brand new roles. This allowed them to adapt to scholarly communication developments and consequently enabled them to offer efficient services to their users. The global calls for openly accessible research results has shifted the institutional, national and international focus and their constant evolvement has required the creation of new research positions in academic libraries. This study reports on the findings of an analysis of job descriptions in the open research services as advertised by UK academic libraries.

METHOD: From March 2015 to March 2017, job advertisements relating to open access, repositories and research data management were collected.

RESULTS: The analysis of the data showed that the primary responsibilities of the open research support staff were: to ensure and facilitate compliance with funders’ open access policies, maintain the tools that enable compliance, create reports and collect statistics that measure compliance rates and commit to continuous liaising activities with research stakeholders.

DISCUSSION: It is clear that the open research services is a complex environment, requiring a variety of general and subject specific skill sets, while often a role may involve more than one area of expertise.

CONCLUSION: The results of this study could benefit prospective employees and universities that wish to embed open research skills in their curriculum.

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"Crowding the Library: How and Why Libraries Are Using Crowdsourcing to Engage the Public"

Sarah Severson and Jean-Sébastien Sauve have published "Crowding the Library: How and Why Libraries Are Using Crowdsourcing to Engage the Public" in Partnership.

Here's an excerpt:

This article is written from a Canadian University library perspective with the goal to help the reader engage with the current crowdsourcing landscape. This article’s contribution includes a literature review and a survey of popular projects and platforms; followed by a case study of a crowdsourcing pilot completed at the McGill Library. The article pulls these two threads of theory and practice together—with a discussion of some of the best practices learned through the literature and real-life experience, giving the reader practical tools to help a library evaluate if crowdsourcing is right for them, and how to get a desired project off the ground.

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"A Model for Initiating Research Data Management Services at Academic Libraries"

Kevin B. Read et al. have published "A Model for Initiating Research Data Management Services at Academic Libraries" in the Journal of the Medical Library Association.

Here's an excerpt:

Background: Librarians developed a pilot program to provide training, resources, strategies, and support for medical libraries seeking to establish research data management (RDM) services. Participants were required to complete eight educational modules to provide the necessary background in RDM. Each participating institution was then required to use two of the following three elements: (1) a template and strategies for data interviews, (2) a teaching tool kit to teach an introductory RDM class, or (3) strategies for hosting a data class series.

Case Presentation: Six libraries participated in the pilot, with between two and eight librarians participating from each institution. Librarians from each institution completed the online training modules. Each institution conducted between six and fifteen data interviews, which helped build connections with researchers, and taught between one and five introductory RDM classes. All classes received very positive evaluations from attendees. Two libraries conducted a data series, with one bringing in instructors from outside the library.

Conclusion: The pilot program proved successful in helping participating librarians learn about and engage with their research communities, jump-start their teaching of RDM, and develop institutional partnerships around RDM services. The practical, hands-on approach of this pilot proved to be successful in helping libraries with different environments establish RDM services. The success of this pilot provides a proven path forward for libraries that are developing data services at their own institutions.

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"Understanding Connections: Examining Digital Library and Institutional Repository Use Overlap"

Mark E. Phillips, Pamela Andrews, and Ana Krahmer have published "Understanding Connections: Examining Digital Library and Institutional Repository Use Overlap" in Publications.

Here's an excerpt:

The University of North Texas Libraries; Digital Collections are situated as a unified whole within their preservation infrastructure, with three separate user interfaces serving the content to different audiences. These separate interfaces are: The UNT Digital Library (DL), The Portal to Texas History, and The Gateway to Oklahoma History. Situated within each interface are collections, and hosted within these collections are digital objects. One collection, the UNT Scholarly Works Repository, specifically serves UNT's research and creative contributions and functions as the Institutional repository (IR) for the University of North Texas. Because UNT Scholarly works is seated as a collection amongst other collections, users can access faculty research, not just out of an interest in research from specific faculty members, but also as it ties into the user's broader understanding of a given topic. With flexible infrastructure and metadata schema that connect collections beneath the umbrella of the wider preservation infrastructure, the UNT DL employs full-text searching and interlinked metadata to strengthen and make visible the connections between objects in different collections. This paper examined how users navigated between other collections within the UNT IR, as well as within the UNT DL. Through this examination, we observed patterns between how users navigated between objects, understood which collections may have related to one another, examined why some unique items were used more than others, and viewed the average number of items used within a session.

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FAIRness of Repositories & Their Data: A Report from LIBER’s Research Data Management Working Group

LIBER has released FAIRness of Repositories & Their Data: A Report from LIBER's Research Data Management Working Group.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The report, which can be downloaded from Zenodo, summarises the answers given by managers, librarians and technical staff with regards to:

  1. The FAIRness of repositories and their data;
  2. Misconceptions related to the principles’ definition and implementation;
  3. The complexity of the implementation and the importance of the FAIR principles for the repository community.

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"Copyright Literacy and the Role of Librarians as Educators and Advocates: An International Symposium"

Jane Secker, Chris Morrison, and Inga-Lill Nilsson have published "Copyright Literacy and the Role of Librarians as Educators and Advocates: An International Symposium" in the Journal of Copyright in Education and Librarianship.

Here's an excerpt:

The paper is inspired by the opening panel of the International Federation of Library Associations’ (IFLA) World Library and Information Congress off-site meeting held in Poland in August 2017 on models for copyright education. . . . The members of the panel considered the rationale for copyright education, why it might be viewed as part of wider information literacy initiatives, and the specific challenges and opportunities that it presents.

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Yale: "Gibbons Named Vice Provost for Collections and Scholarly Communications"

Yale has released "Gibbons Named Vice Provost for Collections and Scholarly Communications."

Here's an excerpt:

Susan Gibbons, the Stephen F. Gates '68 University Librarian and deputy provost for collections and scholarly communications, has been appointed Yale’s vice provost for collections and scholarly communications, President Peter Salovey announced. The appointment is effective July 1. . . .

In addition to the Yale University Library, her expanded portfolio of responsibilities will include the Institute for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage at West Campus, Yale University Art Gallery, Yale Center for British Art, Yale Peabody Museum, and Yale University Press.

The university will launch a search for a new university librarian, and Gibbons will continue to steward the library system until her successor is appointed.

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University Librarian at University of Hawaii

The University of Hawaii is recruiting a University Librarian.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

Reporting to the Provost, the University Librarian will provide leadership and guidance in all aspects of the Library, including positioning the Library locally, nationally, and globally; maximizing the benefit of its multi-cultural and Pacific island environment; intellectual development; fundraising; and management of all aspects of Library operations, including developing and ensuring stewardship of a sustainable digital preservation program.

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"Remembering the CLASSICs: Impact of the CLASSICs Act on Memory Institutions, Orphan Works, and Mass Digitization"

Shannon Price, has published "Remembering the CLASSICs: Impact of the CLASSICs Act on Memory Institutions, Orphan Works, and Mass Digitization" in the UCLA Entertainment Law Review.

Here's an excerpt:

This paper considers the impact of the CLASSICs Act on memory institutions' ability to combat two of the most significant legal challenges that they face: orphan works and mass digitization. Although the CLASSICs Act is at best a partial solution for orphan works and mass digitization, it has fundamentally changed the landscape for memory institution use of pre–72 sound recordings.

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Louisiana State University Drops the Big Deal: "Elsevier Changes: Message from the Provost"

Louisiana State University has released "Elsevier Changes: Message from the Provost."

Here's an excerpt:

During the Faculty Senate's final meeting of the spring semester, senators approved a resolution recommending the cancellation of the subscription package of Elsevier journals. Going forward, the Libraries will subscribe to Elsevier journals on a title-by-title basis, retaining the most highly used journals by the LSU community. The resolution further called for the creation of expedited document delivery to provide fast, unmediated access to articles in journals not on subscription.

The LSU administration supports this course of action. Once the current contract with Elsevier expires at the end of 2019, LSU will break away from the package agreement, and expects to spend $1 million on Elsevier titles, subscribing to fewer journals and providing access to all previously available material through alternate sources.

Research Data Curation Bibliography, Version 9 | Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap