Category: Research Libraries

"How Are We Measuring Up? Evaluating Research Data Services in Academic Libraries"

Heather L. Coates et al. have published "How Are We Measuring Up? Evaluating Research Data Services in Academic Libraries" in the Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication.

Here's an excerpt:

INTRODUCTION In the years since the emergence of federal funding agency data management and sharing requirements (http://datasharing.sparcopen.org/data), research data services (RDS) have expanded to dozens of academic libraries in the United States. As these services have matured, service providers have begun to assess them. Given a lack of practical guidance in the literature, we seek to begin the discussion with several case studies and an exploration of four approaches suitable to assessing these emerging services. DESCRIPTION OF PROGRAM This article examines five case studies that vary by staffing, drivers, and institutional context in order to begin a practice-oriented conversation about how to evaluate and assess research data services in academic libraries. The case studies highlight some commonly discussed challenges, including insufficient training and resources, competing demands for evaluation efforts, and the tension between evidence that can be easily gathered and that which addresses our most important questions. We explore reflective practice, formative evaluation, developmental evaluation, and evidence-based library and information practice for ideas to advance practice. NEXT STEPS Data specialists engaged in providing research data services need strategies and tools with which to make decisions about their services. These range from identifying stakeholder needs to refining existing services to determining when to extend and discontinue declining services. While the landscape of research data services is broad and diverse, there are common needs that we can address as a community. To that end, we have created a community-owned space to facilitate the exchange of knowledge and existing resources.

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Gale S. Etschmaier Named as Dean of Florida State University Libraries

The Florida State University Libraries have released "FSU Names New Dean of University Libraries."

Here's an excerpt:

At San Diego State, Etschmaier provided leadership for the library and the university's student computer hub with more than 700 computers. She oversaw 80 faculty and staff, 100 student assistants and a budget of approximately $12 million.

Prior to her tenure at San Diego State, Etschmaier spent a decade as associate university librarian for public service at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

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Artificial Intelligence in Libraries in the Late 1980’s and Early 1990’s

In the late 1980's and early 1990's, academic libraries were creating prototype and operational expert systems using expert system shells and logic programming languages, such as Prolog.

A snapshot of this activity in ARL libraries is:

Expert Systems in ARL Libraries, SPEC Kit 174. Bailey, Charles W., Jr., and Judy E. Myers. Washington, DC: Association of Research Libraries, 1991.

In-depth treatments include:

Alberico, Ralph, and Mary Micco. Expert Systems For Reference and Information Retrieval. Westport: Meckler, 1990.

Aluri, Rao., and Donald E. Riggs, eds. Expert Systems in Libraries. Norwood, N.J.: Ablex, 1990.

You can get a sense of the AI activities in research libraries during this period by reading articles about the University of Houston Libraries' grant-funded Intelligent Reference Information System Project, which was prototyped in expert system shells and completed in Prolog. The Prolog code was freely distributed to over 500 libraries and other institutions (on floppy disk!).

Bailey, Charles W., Jr., and Robin N. Downes. "Intelligent Reference Information System (IRIS)," In 101 Success Stories of Information Technology in Higher Education: The Joe Wyatt Challenge," ed. Judith V. Boettcher, 402-407. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1993.

Bailey, Charles W., Jr. "The Intelligent Reference Information System Project: A Merger of CD-ROM LAN and Expert System Technologies." Information Technology and Libraries 11 (September 1992): 237-244.

Bailey, Charles W., Jr., and Thomas C. Wilson. "The Intelligent Reference Information System CD-ROM Network." In Library LANs: Case Studies in Practice and Application, ed. Marshall Breeding, 157-171. Westport, CT: Meckler, 1992.

Bailey, Charles W., Jr. "Building Knowledge-Based Systems for Public Use: The Intelligent Reference Systems Project at the University of Houston Libraries." In Convergence: Proceedings of the Second National Conference of the Library and Information Technology Association, October 2-6, 1988, ed. Michael Gorman, 190-194. Chicago: American Library Association., 1990.

Bailey, Charles W., Jr., and Kathleen Gunning. "The Intelligent Reference Information System." CD-ROM Librarian 5 (September 1990): 10-19.

Bailey, Charles W., Jr., Jeff Fadell, Judy E. Myers, and Thomas C. Wilson. "The Index Expert System: A Knowledge-Based System to Assist Users in Index Selection." Reference Services Review 17, no. 4 (1989): 19-28.

For an example of contemporaneous thinking about AI potentials among librarians, see:

Bailey, Charles W., Jr. "Intelligent Library Systems: Artificial Intelligence Technology and Library Automation Systems." In Advances in Library Automation and Networking, vol. 4, ed. Joe A. Hewitt, 1-23. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, 1991.

There has been very little activity in this area since the turn of the 21st century, but here's an example:

Ma, Wei. "A Database Selection Expert System Based on Reference Librarian's Database Selection Strategy: A Usability and Empirical Evaluation." Journal of the American Society for Information Science & Technology, 53 no. 7 (2002): 567-580.

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"Software Curation in Research Libraries: Practice and Promise"

Alexandra Chassanoff et al. have self-archived "Software Curation in Research Libraries: Practice and Promise."

Here's an excerpt:

Research software plays an increasingly vital role in the scholarly record. Academic research libraries are in the early stages of exploring strategies for curating and preserving research software, aiming to provide long-term access and use. In 2016, the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) began offering postdoctoral fellowships in software curation. Four institutions hosted the initial cohort of fellows. This article describes the work activities and research program of the cohort, highlighting the challenges and benefits of doing this exploratory work in research libraries.

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"Health Sciences Libraries Advancing Collaborative Clinical Research Data Management in Universities"

Tania P. Bardyn et al. have published "Health Sciences Libraries Advancing Collaborative Clinical Research Data Management in Universities" in the Journal of eScience Librarianship.

Here's an excerpt:

Purpose: Medical libraries need to actively review their service models and explore partnerships with other campus entities to provide better-coordinated clinical research management services to faculty and researchers. TRAIL (Translational Research and Information Lab), a five-partner initiative at the University of Washington (UW), explores how best to leverage existing expertise and space to deliver clinical research data management (CRDM) services and emerging technology support to clinical researchers at UW and collaborating institutions in the Pacific Northwest.

Methods: The initiative offers 14 services and a technology-enhanced innovation lab located in the Health Sciences Library (HSL) to support the University of Washington clinical and research enterprise. Sharing of staff and resources merges library and non-library workflows, better coordinating data and innovation services to clinical researchers. Librarians have adopted new roles in CRDM, such as providing user support and training for UW's Research Electronic Data Capture (REDCap) instance.

Results: TRAIL staff are quickly adapting to changing workflows and shared services, including teaching classes on tools used to manage clinical research data. Researcher interest in TRAIL has sparked new collaborative initiatives and service offerings. Marketing and promotion will be important for raising researchers’ awareness of available services.

Conclusions: Medical librarians are developing new skills by supporting and teaching CRDM. Clinical and data librarians better understand the information needs of clinical and translational researchers by being involved in the earlier stages of the research cycle and identifying technologies that can improve healthcare outcomes. At health sciences libraries, leveraging existing resources and bringing services together is central to how university medical librarians will operate in the future.

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"In Pursuit of Equity: Applying Design Thinking to Develop a Values-Based Open Access Statement"

Lillian Rigling, Emily Carlisle and Courtney Waugh have published "In Pursuit of Equity: Applying Design Thinking to Develop a Values-Based Open Access Statement" in In the Library with the Lead Pipe.

Here's an excerpt:

We wanted to rethink how our library supported open access, so we attempted to ask ourselves and our staff why they supported "open" and how they defined "open". By unpacking our institutional and individual understandings of "open" using design thinking principles, we were able to not only create a strong and value-driven statement, but to also open the door for staff at all levels to engage in policy-making for the organization.

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Want to Support Open Access? Volunteer for the Open Access Tracking Project

The Open Access Tracking Project (OATP) provides a constant stream of up-to-date information about open access issues in a primary feed and in a number of secondary feeds that focus on specialized OA subtopics. It offers the primary feed in a variety of distribution options, including email, Google+, HTML, RSS, Twitter, and others. It is an invaluable source of information for open access advocates, research data specialists, and scholarly communication specialists, and it provides important support for the open access movement as a whole.

Based at the Harvard Open Access Project, the OATP was launched by Peter Suber. Suber's SPARC Open Access Newsletter and his Free Online Scholarship Newsletter played an important part in getting the open access movement off the ground. The OATP continues the mission of those groundbreaking publications using the open source TagTeam software, which was developed for the OATP.

Launched with the help of grant funding, the OATP will enter a new an all-volunteer phase at the end of August 2018. To continue this crowd-sourced project, new volunteers are needed. You can help move the OA agenda forward by being one of them. This wiki page explains how you can join the team and start tagging.

By volunteering just a bit of time to the OATP, you can make a significant difference.

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New OA Poliicy: "Johns Hopkins Open Access Policy"

The Sheridan Libraries of Johns Hopkins University have released "Johns Hopkins Open Access Policy."

Here's an excerpt:

Johns Hopkins joins peer institutions, such as Harvard, MIT, and The University of California, by instituting a faculty open access policy. . . .

The Open Access website on the Provost’s site provides an FAQ, a background on Open Access, and a short history of the policy. It also provides a link to the Public Access Submission System, PASS, built by the library development team, to allow faculty to submit their author’s final version of their articles to JScholarship and PubMed Central, the repository for articles funded by NIH, ACL, ASPR, CDC, VA, FDA, HHMI, and NASA. More repositories will be added to PASS over time, saving faculty time and effort.

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Library Publishing Coalition: An Ethical Framework for Library Publishing Version 1.0.

The Library Publishing Coalition has released An Ethical Framework for Library Publishing Version 1.0..

Here's an excerpt:

Library publishing is distinguished in part from other types of scholarly publishing by a focus on adherence to the values and ethics of librarianship. An Ethical Framework for Library Publishing supports good practice in this area by providing resources and guidance in a number of ethical areas of importance to library publishers. Version 1.0 (published July 2018) covers publishing practice; accessibility; diversity, equity, and inclusion; privacy and analytics; and academic and intellectual freedom.

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Academic Library as Scholarly Publisher Bibliography

The Academic Library as Scholarly Publisher Bibliography includes over 125 selected English-language articles, books, and technical reports that are useful in understanding the digital scholarly publishing activities of academic libraries since the late 1980's, especially their open access book and journal publishing activities. The bibliography covers the following subtopics: pioneering academic library publishing projects in the 1980's and 1990's, early digital journals and serials published by librarians (as distinct from libraries), library-based scholarly publishing since the Budapest Open Access Initiative, technical publishing infrastructure, and library and university press mergers/partnerships and other relevant works.

Most sources have been published from January 2002 through July 2018; however, a limited number of earlier key sources are also included. The bibliography has links to included works. Abstracts are included in this bibliography if a work is under a Creative Commons Attribution License (BY and national/international variations), a Creative Commons public domain dedication (CC0), or a Creative Commons Public Domain Mark and this is clearly indicated in the work.

The Academic Library as Scholarly Publisher Bibliography is under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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"The Weakest Link—Workflows in Open Access Agreements: The Experience of the Vienna University Library and Recommendations for Future Negotiations"

Rita Pinhasi et al. have published "The Weakest Link—Workflows in Open Access Agreements: The Experience of the Vienna University Library and Recommendations for Future Negotiations" in Insights.

Here's an excerpt:

In recent years open access (OA) publishing agreements have left a lasting impact on several aspects of the research life cycle, and on the manner in which institutions work with publishers and researchers to support the transition to OA. Apart from the immediate financial implications, one significant challenge libraries are facing is the sub-optimal level of workflow infrastructure that could determine the success or failure of otherwise innovative approaches. This article will examine the Vienna University Library’s hands-on experience with OA agreements and the implementation of relevant workflows. It will describe existing workflows, review the benefits of the various systems in place and identify areas for improvement. The paper will also propose items for discussion for organizations when negotiating OA agreements with publishers and will highlight potential pitfalls to be avoided.

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Cornell University Library Repository Principles and Strategies Handbook

Erin Faulder et al. have self-archived the "Cornell University Library Repository Principles and Strategies Handbook."

Here's an excerpt:

The handbook provides support for both new and existing repository managers, comprising both recommended practices and specifically identified action steps that will allow them to track their progress and identify gaps. Each section of the handbook covers a different strategic area of repository management, standing largely on its own and linking to other sections when appropriate. Although there is no primary section order, we recommend starting with Defining Repository Scope and Service Planning. The handbook specifically addresses principles and practices pertaining to digital repositories, where a digital repository can be defined as: a system, the purpose of which is to store, present, and preserve a collection of data for which the library provides services. That is, the term refers specifically to the application as opposed to the content (collections, objects and metadata) within.

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Senior Vice Provost and Director of Libraries at North Carolina State University

North Carolina State University is recruiting a Senior Vice Provost and Director of Libraries.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

The NCSU Libraries—the gateway to knowledge for the North Carolina State University community and partners—consists of D.H. Hill, James B. Hunt Jr., Harrye B. Lyons Design, Natural Resources, and William R. Kenan Jr. Veterinary Medicine Libraries. The Libraries has earned an international reputation as a technology incubator and leader in the digital library domain. Additionally, the Libraries is known for the extraordinary caliber of employees as well as the quality and innovation of the services offered. Ten departments include 210 FTE staff as well as an extensive and engaged student workforce (45 FTE). The award-winning NCSU Libraries Fellows Program is recognized for its originality, leadership and exceptionally successful impact.

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"Defining Data Librarianship: A Survey of Competencies, Skills, and Training"

Lisa Federer has published "Defining Data Librarianship: A Survey of Competencies, Skills, and Training" in the Journal of the Medical Library Association.

Here's an excerpt:

Respondents considered a broad range of skills and knowledge important to their work, especially “soft skills” and personal characteristics, like communication skills and the ability to develop relationships with researchers. Traditional library skills like cataloging and collection development were considered less important. A cluster analysis of the responses revealed two types of data librarians: data generalists, who tend to provide data services across a variety of fields, and subject specialists, who tend to provide more specialized services to a distinct discipline.

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