Archives Unleashed Project Awarded $610,625 Grant by Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

The Archives Unleashed Project has been awarded a $610,625 Grant by Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The University of Waterloo and York University have been awarded a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to make petabytes of historical internet content accessible to scholars and others interested in researching the recent past. . . .

The three-year Archives Unleashed project has three major thrusts: First, the project will build a software toolkit that applies modern big data analytics infrastructure to scholarly analysis of web archives. Second, the toolkit will be deployed in a cloud-based environment that will provide a one-stop portal for scholars to ingest their collections and execute a number of analyses with the click of a mouse. Finally, datathons—or hackathons—will build a cohesive and sustainable user community by bringing the core project team members together with librarians, archivists, and other interested researchers.

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"HathiTrust Libraries Propose to Retain More Than 16 Million Volumes in Shared Print Program"

HathiTrust has released "HathiTrust Libraries Propose to Retain More Than 16 Million Volumes in Shared Print Program."

Here's an excerpt:

Fifty HathiTrust member libraries have proposed to retain more than 16 million volumes for 25 years under the HathiTrust Shared Print Program. These volumes correspond to more than 4.8 million individual book titles held in the HathiTrust Digital Library (about 65% of all HathiTrust digital monographs). This is a significant step toward the primary goal of the program: to ensure that print copies of all HathiTrust digital holdings remain available to scholars for many years to come. The Shared Print Program is a core program of HathiTrust, supported by and benefiting all of the more than 120 HathiTrust members

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Susan E. Parker Named as University of British Columbia University Librarian

Susan E. Parker has been named as the University of British Columbia's University Librarian.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

In September 2017, UBC will welcome Susan E. Parker as University Librarian for a five-year term. Ms. Parker currently holds the role of Deputy University Librarian at the University of California, Los Angeles where she leads operations, human resources, assessment, budgeting, strategic planning, capital project planning and fundraising

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"Inconsistencies between Academic E-book Platforms: A Comparison of Metadata and Search Results"

portal: Libraries and the Academy has released and e-print of "Inconsistencies between Academic E-book Platforms: A Comparison of Metadata and Search Results."

Here's an excerpt:

This article presents the results of a study of academic e-books that compared the metadata and search results from major academic e-book platforms. The authors collected data and performed a series of test searches designed to produce the same result regardless of platform. Testing, however, revealed metadata-related errors and significant variation in search results that could impact the user experience. This article describes how other libraries could perform this type of testing and how this information could be used to inform the selection of e-books that are available on multiple platforms.

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"Raising the Library’s Impact Factor: A Case Study in Scholarly Publishing Literacy for Graduate Students"

portal: Libraries and the Academy has released and e-print of "Raising the Library's Impact Factor: A Case Study in Scholarly Publishing Literacy for Graduate Students."

Here's an excerpt:

Graduate students across disciplines feel pressure to publish their scholarship, but they are often unsure how to go about it, partly due to a lack of explicit training in this area. This article discusses the collaborative development of a semester-long Publishing Academy, designed to promote knowledge of scholarly publishing and increase the library’s impact within the graduate student community. Demonstrating how librarians can draw on their unique skills to build a niche service addressing unmet needs on campus, the project also puts into practice a broader conception of scholarly publishing literacy, which can be linked to the Association of College and Research Libraries Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education.

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"Digital Public Library of America to Pilot eBook Lending in Fall"

DPLA has released "Digital Public Library of America to Pilot eBook Lending in Fall."

Here's an excerpt:

Planned for this fall, DPLA will be lending ebooks in what it hopes is a streamlined, non-proprietary and vendorless platform.

While ebook lending has grown fast among US public libraries, the process is not always seamless. Book discovery, borrowing, and consumption must happen within the provide'’s app or website. DPLA wants to create a process that isn’t as specific, and one that works with a broader range of content producers for better access to ebooks.

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"Administration’s FY 2018 Budget Request Includes $23 Million to Start Wind-Down of IMLS Operations"

IMLS has released "Administration's FY 2018 Budget Request Includes $23 Million to Start Wind-Down of IMLS Operations."

Here's an excerpt:

Today, President Donald J. Trump released his FY 2018 budget request to Congress, which includes $23 million for administrative expenses to begin conducting a closeout of operations of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) starting in Fiscal Year 2018. IMLS is one of several independent agencies designated for elimination in the FY 2018 budget request. The budget request expands upon the initial Administration budget request released in March, proposing the elimination of IMLS. The request released today includes no funding for IMLS grant programs.

See also: "IMLS Frequently Asked Questions on the Fiscal Year (FY) 2018 President’s Budget Request."

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Finding a Way from the Margins to the Middle: Library Information Technology, Leadership, and Culture

Ithaka S+R has released Finding a Way from the Margins to the Middle: Library Information Technology, Leadership, and Culture.

Here's an excerpt:

Unlike other recent library service program developments—namely, information literacy and scholarly communication, which also started on the margins—information technology has not found its way to the "middle" in most of our organizations. Information technology workers, not solely but in particular, experience a lingering divide between the culture of the information technology unit and the library culture at large as an unproductive chasm. As a result, libraries fail to develop the full potential in their technology-dependent service programs and, ultimately, library users are left without the kinds of programs and products that would create real value for them.

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Beth Sandore Namachchivaya Named University Librarian at University of Waterloo

Beth Sandore Namachchivaya has been named University Librarian at the University of Waterloo.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The University of Waterloo has named Beth Sandore Namachchivaya university librarian, effective August 1, 2017. Sandore Namachchivaya is currently associate university librarian for research, associate dean of libraries, and professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

See also: "Beth Sandore Namachchivaya appointed University Librarian."

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"From the Ground Up: A Group Editorial on the Most Pressing Issues in Scholarly Communication"

Nicky Agate et. al have published "From the Ground Up: A Group Editorial on the Most Pressing Issues in Scholarly Communication" in the Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication.

Here's an excerpt:

There has been quite a bit of discussion lately about the future of scholarly communication in libraries (for an example, see Clifford Lynch's guest editorial in the February issue of C&RL), and we wanted to give our board a chance to weigh in. They were asked to share their take on the most pressing issues in scholarly communication today, in their capacity as Editorial Board members (rather than as representatives of their respective institutions), and the following six short pieces are the result.

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"Outside The Box: Building a Digital Asset Management Ecosystem for Preservation and Access"

Andrew Weidner, Sean Watkins, Bethany Scott, Drew Krewer, Anne Washington, and Matthew Richardson have published "Outside The Box: Building a Digital Asset Management Ecosystem for Preservation and Access" in Code4Lib Journal.

Here's an excerpt:

The University of Houston (UH) Libraries made an institutional commitment in late 2015 to migrate the data for its digitized cultural heritage collections to open source systems for preservation and access: Hydra-in-a-Box, Archivematica, and ArchivesSpace. This article describes the work that the UH Libraries implementation team has completed to date, including open source tools for streamlining digital curation workflows, minting and resolving identifiers, and managing SKOS vocabularies. These systems, workflows, and tools, collectively known as the Bayou City Digital Asset Management System (BCDAMS), represent a novel effort to solve common issues in the digital curation lifecycle and may serve as a model for other institutions seeking to implement flexible and comprehensive systems for digital preservation and access.

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"An Exploratory Sequential Mixed Methods Approach to Understanding Researchers’ Data Management Practices at UVM: Integrated Findings to Develop Research Data Services"

Elizabeth A. Berman has published "An Exploratory Sequential Mixed Methods Approach to Understanding Researchers' Data Management Practices at UVM: Integrated Findings to Develop Research Data Services" in the Journal of eScience Librarianship.

Here's an excerpt:

This article reports on the integrated findings of an exploratory sequential mixed methods research design aimed to understand data management behaviors and challenges of faculty at the University of Vermont (UVM) in order to develop relevant research data services. The exploratory sequential mixed methods design is characterized by an initial qualitative phase of data collection and analysis, followed by a phase of quantitative data collection and analysis, with a final phase of integration or linking of data from the two separate strands of data. A joint display was used to integrate data focused on the three primary research questions: How do faculty at UVM manage their research data, in particular how do they share and preserve data in the long-term?; What challenges or barriers do UVM faculty face in effectively managing their research data?; and What institutional data management support or services are UVM faculty interested in?

See also: "An Exploratory Sequential Mixed Methods Approach to Understanding Researchers' Data Management Practices at UVM: Findings from the Qualitative Phase" and "An Exploratory Sequential Mixed Methods Approach to Understanding Researchers' Data Management Practices at UVM: Findings from the Quantitative Phase."

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US Library Survey 2016

Ithaka S+R has released the US Library Survey 2016.

Here's an excerpt:

Library directors are pursuing strategic directions with a decreasing sense of support from their institutions. There is evidence across the survey that library directors feel increasingly less valued by, involved with, and aligned strategically with their supervisors and other senior academic leadership. Compared with the previous survey cycle in 2013, fewer library directors perceive that they are a part of their institution’s senior academic leadership and that they share the same vision for the library with their direct supervisor. Only about 20% of respondents agreed that the budget allocations they receive from their institution demonstrates recognition of the value of the library.

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"The Rise of Reading Analytics and the Emerging Calculus of Reader Privacy in the Digital World"

Clifford Lynch has published "The Rise of Reading Analytics and the Emerging Calculus of Reader Privacy in the Digital World" in First Monday.

Here's an excerpt:

This paper studies emerging technologies for tracking reading behaviors (“reading analytics”) and their implications for reader privacy, attempting to place them in a historical context. It discusses what data is being collected, to whom it is available, and how it might be used by various interested parties (including authors). I explore means of tracking what’s being read, who is doing the reading, and how readers discover what they read. The paper includes two case studies: mass-market e-books (both directly acquired by readers and mediated by libraries) and scholarly journals (usually mediated by academic libraries); in the latter case I also provide examples of the implications of various authentication, authorization and access management practices on reader privacy. While legal issues are touched upon, the focus is generally pragmatic, emphasizing technology and marketplace practices.

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A Tour of the Research Data Management (RDM) Service Space. The Realities of Research Data Management, Part 1

OCLC Research has released A Tour of the Research Data Management (RDM) Service Space. The Realities of Research Data Management, Part 1.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The Realities of Research Data Management is a four-part series that explores how research universities are addressing the challenge of managing research data throughout the research lifecycle.

In this introductory report, we provide some brief background on the emergence of RDM as a focus for research support services within higher education, and present a simple framework describing three major components of the RDM service space:

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"Organization and Delivery of Scholarly Communications Services by Academic and Research Libraries in the United Kingdom: Observations from Across the Pond"

Christine Fruin has published "Organization and Delivery of Scholarly Communications Services by Academic and Research Libraries in the United Kingdom: Observations from Across the Pond" in the Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication.

Here's an excerpt:

There are three primary takeaways from the experience of U.K. scholarly communication practitioners for U.S. librarians: increase collaboration with offices of research, reconsider current organization and delegation of scholarly communication services, and increase involvement in legislative and policy-making activity in the U.S. with respect to access to research.

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Martin Halbert Named Dean of University of North Carolina at Greensboro University Libraries

Martin Halbert has been appointed Dean of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro University Libraries.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Halbert has served as dean of libraries and associate professor at the University of North Texas since 2009. Halbert also serves as president of the board of directors of the Educopia Institute, a growing international alliance of cultural memory organizations that was one of the founding partners of the National Digital Preservation Program. Prior to Halbert’s appointment at the University of North Texas, he served as the director for digital innovations and earlier as the director for digital programs and systems at Emory University Libraries.

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"An Exploration of Faculty Experiences with Open Access Journal Publishing at Two Canadian Comprehensive Universities"

has published "An Exploration of Faculty Experiences with Open Access Journal Publishing at Two Canadian Comprehensive Universities" in Partnership The Canadian Journal of Library and Information Practice and Research.

Here's an excerpt:

This exploratory study was intended to shed light on Canadian academics’ participation in, knowledge of and attitudes towards Open Access (OA) journal publishing. The primary aim of the study was to inform the authors’ schools’ educational and outreach efforts to faculty regarding OA publishing. The survey was conducted at two Canadian comprehensive universities: Brock University (St. Catharines, Ontario) and Wilfrid Laurier University (Waterloo, Ontario) in 2014.

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"ARL Statistics 2014–2015 and Updated Trends Graphs Published"

ARL has released "ARL Statistics 2014–2015 and Updated Trends Graphs Published."

Here's an excerpt:

The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) has released the ARL Statistics 2014–2015 and updated its free series of graphs showing trends in the ARL Statistics data over time. These two publications present information describing the collections, staffing, expenditures, and service activities of the Association’s 124 member libraries in fiscal year 2014–2015. Of these, 114 are university libraries (15 in Canada and 99 in the US); the remaining 10 are public, governmental, and nonprofit research libraries (1 in Canada, 9 in the US).

See also: "ARL Academic Law Library Statistics 2014–2015 Published" and "ARL Academic Health Sciences Library Statistics 2014–2015 Published."

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AAU, ARL, and AAUP Will Launch Open Access Monograph Publishing Initiative

AAU, ARL, and AAUP will launch the Open Access Monograph Publishing Initiative this spring.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The universities and colleges directly participating in this initiative will incorporate three components into their digital monograph publishing projects: provide a baseline university publishing grant of $15,000 to support the publication of an open access, digital monograph of 90,000 words or less (with additional funding for works of greater length or complexity to be negotiated by the author, institution, and publisher); set a target of awarding at least three publishing grants per year; and commit to participating in this initiative for five years.

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"Supply, Demand, and the Subscription Model in Scholarly Publishing—An Analysis"

Kent Anderson has published "Supply, Demand, and the Subscription Model in Scholarly Publishing—An Analysis" in The Scholarly Kitchen.

Here's an excerpt:

5. Denials (turn-aways) to archival content remain high. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the dataset comes with the percentage of denials to the backfile, which represented 60% of all denials (turn-aways). Even looking at content 10 years old or older, denials represented 49% of the total, dropping to 37% for content 20 years old or older. Archives and backfiles are still sought after, as these data and the abstract usage combined to illustrate.

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"Building a Research Data Management Service at the University of California, Berkeley"

Jamie Wittenberg and Mary Elings have self-archived "Building a Research Data Management Service at the University of California, Berkeley."

Here's an excerpt:

University of California, Berkeley's Library and the central Research Information Technologies unit have collaborated to develop a research data management program that leverages each organization’s expertise and resources to create a unified service. The service offers a range of workshops, consultation, and an online resource. Because of this collaboration, service areas that are often fully embedded in IT, like backup and secure storage, as well as services in the Library domain, like resource discovery and instruction, are integrated into a single research data management program..

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EFF Submits Amicus Brief in Cambridge Press v. Georgia State University E-Reserves Copyright Case

The EFF has submitted an Amicus Brief in the Cambridge Press v. Georgia State University case.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

On behalf of three national library associations, EFF today urged a federal appeals court for the second time to protect librarians' and students' rights to make fair use of excerpts from academic books and research.

Nearly a decade ago, three of the largest academic publishers in the world—backed by the Association of American Publishers (AAP) trade group—sued Georgia State University (GSU) for copyright infringement . . . GSU argued that posting excerpts in the e-reserve systems was a "fair use " of the material, thus not subject to licensing fees. GSU also changed its e-reserve policy to ensure its practices were consistent with a set of fair use best practices that were developed pursuant to a broad consensus among libraries and other stakeholders. . . .

But that was not enough to satisfy the publishers. Rather than declare victory, they've doggedly pursued their claims. It seems the publishers will not be content until universities and libraries agree to further decimate their budgets. As we explain in our brief, that outcome would undermine the fundamental purposes of copyright, not to mention both the public interest, and the interests of the authors of the works in question.

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NMC Horizon Report: 2017 Higher Education Edition

NMC and the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative have released the NMC Horizon Report: 2017 Higher Education Edition.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

This 14th edition describes annual findings from the NMC Horizon Project, an ongoing research project designed to identify and describe emerging technologies likely to have an impact on learning, teaching, and creative inquiry in education. Six key trends, six significant challenges, and six important developments in educational technology are placed directly in the context of their likely impact on the core missions of universities and colleges. The three key sections of this report constitute a reference and straightforward technology-planning guide for educators, higher education leaders, administrators, policymakers, and technologists.

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University of Arizona Names Karen Williams as VP for Information Strategy and University Libraries

The University of Arizona named Karen Williams as VP for Information Strategy and University Libraries.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Karen Williams, who has been serving as the interim leader for University Information Technology Services in addition to her duties as dean of University Libraries, has been appointed to a new position that gives her oversight over both areas. . . .

Although Williams will oversee the two areas, UITS and University Libraries will not be merged into one unit.

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