Category: Research Libraries

"How to Hack it as a Working Parent"

Jaclyn Bedoya et al. have published "How to Hack it as a Working Parent" in Code4Lib Journal.

Here's an excerpt:

The problems faced by working parents in technical fields in libraries are not unique or particularly unusual. However, the cross-section of work-life balance and gender disparity problems found in academia and technology can be particularly troublesome, especially for mothers and single parents. Attracting and retaining diverse talent in work environments that are highly structured or with high expectations of unstated off-the-clock work may be impossible long term. . . .

We present some practical solutions for those in technical positions in libraries. Such solutions involve strategic use of technical tools, and lightweight project management applications. Technical workarounds are not the only answer; real and lasting change will involve a change in individual priorities and departmental culture such as sophisticated and ruthless time management, reviewing workloads, cross-training personnel, hiring contract replacements, and creative divisions of labor. Ultimately, a flexible environment that reflects the needs of parents will help create a better workplace culture for everyone, kids or no kids.

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Beth McNeil Named Dean of the Iowa State University Library

Beth McNeil has been named Dean of the Iowa State University Library .

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

At Purdue, McNeil was responsible for managing 12 campus libraries, as well as the archives/special collections, technical services, digitization and the collections management units. She had oversight of nearly 90 faculty and staff and a $13.7 million annual collections budget.

McNeil previously served in leadership positions in the libraries at Bradley University, Peoria, Illinois; and University of Nebraska, Lincoln. . . .

McNeil earned a bachelor’s degree in English and a master’s degree in library and information science, both from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She completed a doctoral program in human sciences, with a focus on leadership studies, at Nebraska.

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"Geographic Information and Technologies in Academic Research Libraries: An ARL Survey of Services and Support"

Ann L Holstein has published "Geographic Information and Technologies in Academic Research Libraries: An ARL Survey of Services and Support" in Information Technology and Libraries.

Here's an excerpt:

One hundred fifteen academic libraries, all current members of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), were selected to participate in an online survey in an effort to better understand campus use of geographic data and geospatial technologies, and how libraries support these uses. The survey was used to capture information regarding geographic needs of their respective campuses, the array of services they offer, and the education and training of geographic information services department staff members. The survey results, along with review of recent literature, were used to identify changes in geographic information services and support since 1997, when a similar survey was conducted by ARL. This new study has enabled recommendations to be made for building a successful geographic information service center within the campus library that offers a robust and comprehensive service and support model for all geographic information usage on campus.

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Directions for Research Data Management in UK Universities

JISC has released Directions for Research Data Management in UK Universities.

Here's an excerpt:

This report addresses five key topics:

  • Policy development and implementation
  • Skills and capability
  • Infrastructure and interoperability
  • Incentives for researchers and support stakeholders
  • Business case and sustainability

For each topic we have included a summary of the main current issues, alongside a vision of where the sector should aim to be in five years' time. We then suggest actions for each topic, divided into 'first steps' and then longer term, more complex priorities. Readers should note that each of the five topics do raise interrelated actions, for example, a usage statistics service is flagged as a potential infrastructure solution and this issue arises again as an action area that can help to incentivise research data management and sharing.

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"Availability and Accessibility in an Open Access Institutional Repository: A Case Study"

Jongwook Lee et al. have published "Availability and Accessibility in an Open Access Institutional Repository: A Case Study" in Information Research.

Here's an excerpt:

This study explores the extent to which an institutional repository makes papers available and accessible on the open Web by using 170 journal articles housed in DigiNole Commons, the institutional repository at Florida State University. . . .

Overall, the results confirm the contribution of the institutional repository in making papers available and accessible. The results also reveal some impediments to the success of open access, including impediments linked to contractual arrangements between authors and publishers, impediments linked to policies, practices and technologies governing the repository itself, and the low level of faculty participation in the repository.

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Dean and Director of Libraries at University at Albany

The University at Albany is recruiting a Dean and Director of Libraries.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

Key opportunities and challenges for the new dean will include providing visionary leadership for the UAlbany Libraries, being a strong advocate and spokesperson for the Libraries, leading and further developing a strong, service-oriented faculty and staff, leveraging the Libraries' financial resources wisely and generating additional funding to improve growth and services, valuing and advancing diversity and inclusion efforts, participating effectively in system-level and national collaborations, and guiding and evaluating the adoption of technology.

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"Advancing Research Communication & Scholarship—An Interview with Robin Champieux and Jill Emery about This New Conference"

Alice Meadows has published "Advancing Research Communication & Scholarship—An Interview with Robin Champieux and Jill Emery about This New Conference" in The Scholarly Kitchen.

Here's an excerpt:

ARCS, Advancing Research Communication & Scholarship, is a new conference designed to provide a broad and collaborative forum for addressing and affecting scholarly and scientific communication. As organizers, we are working from the idea that supporting and improving knowledge communication in the digital age necessitates conversations and partnerships across communities, disciplines, and expertise. . . . Partnering with an organizing committee of librarians, technologists, humanists, scientists, and publishers we have built a conference program that addresses scholarly communication issues across the research cycle, through a diversity of stakeholder perspectives.

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You Didn’t Think It Was Over, Did You? New Motion in GSU Copyright Case

According to "Publishers' Move Could Mean 'Whole New Trial' in GSU Copyright Case," the plaintiffs have filed a motion to "reopen the trial record, and have asked that new evidence be used to determine whether some of the university's online e-reserve course readings are infringing copyright."

The article also mentions a recent e-print by Brandon Butler, "Transformative Teaching and Educational Fair Use after Georgia State."

Here's an excerpt from the e-print:

The latest installment in the history of educational fair use, the 11th Circuit's opinion in the Georgia State e-reserves case, may be the last judicial word on the subject for years to come, and I argue that its import is primarily in its rejection of outdated guidelines and case law, rather than any affirmative vision of fair use (which the court studiously avoids). Because of the unique factual context of the case, it stops short of bridging the gap between educational fair use and modern transformative use jurisprudence. With help from recent scholarship on broad patterns in fair use caselaw, I pick up where the GSU court left off, describing a variety of common educational uses that are categorizable as transformative, and therefore entitled to broad deference under contemporary fair use doctrine. In the process, I show a way forward for vindicating fair use rights, and first amendment rights, by applying the transformative use concept at lower levels of abstraction to help practice communities make sense of the doctrine.

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Managing Open Access Publication: A System Specification

JISC Monitor has released Managing Open Access Publication: A System Specification.

Here's an excerpt:

The purpose of this document is to provide a specification for a system to help UK HE institutions manage administrative data in relation to the publication of open access Academic Outputs. The document is intended to:

  • Describe the scope of such a system and the workflows it should support
  • Describe an appropriate data model given the scope and workflows
  • Provide illustrative wireframes for a user interface (UI) to such a system

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Owning and Using Scholarship: An IP Handbook for Teachers and Researchers

ACRL has released Owning and Using Scholarship: An IP Handbook for Teachers and Researchers by Kevin L. Smith. It is available in print and digital formats, including an open access PDF.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Copyright and other types of laws regulating intellectual property create an increasing concern for contemporary scholarship. The digital environment has created exciting new opportunities and possibilities for scholars to work and distribute their work. But these new opportunities also create issues that did not arise in the analog world. Owning and Using Scholarship demystifies intellectual property, and especially copyright law, for academic authors and independent scholars who face these dilemmas. It also serves as a comprehensive resource for librarians who are asked to assist with these new and challenging decisions.

Digital Scholarship | "A Quarter-Century as an Open Access Publisher"

Digital Scholarship Centers: Trends and Good Practice

CNI has released Digital Scholarship Centers: Trends and Good Practice.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The purpose of this workshop was to explore the varying models of supporting digital scholarship in higher education, focusing on those that involve partnerships with, or a strong role for, libraries and information technology units. Participants were selected to represent a range of scholarship center models, different types of higher education institutions, and a variety of roles, including senior leadership, heads of centers, faculty closely affiliated with centers, and graduate students with close ties to centers.

Digital Scholarship | "A Quarter-Century as an Open Access Publisher"

"Ensuring Research Integrity: The Role of Data Management in Current Crises"

Heather Coates has published Ensuring Research Integrity: The Role of Data Management in Current Crises in College & Research Libraries News.

Here's an excerpt:

Acknowledging responsible data management as foundational for research integrity is not sufficient. We need to value the processes and products of research equally by: 1) creating incentives for responsible management of data, 2) developing standards and practices for peer review that balance evaluation of methodological quality and research integrity with potential impact, and 3) carefully considering the resources necessary to responsibly manage and preserve newly created data for five-to-ten years after publication.

Digital Scholarship | "A Quarter-Century as an Open Access Publisher"

CNI Executive Roundtable Report: E-Book Strategies

CNI has released CNI Executive Roundtable Report: E-Book Strategies .

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

During two separate convenings of this roundtable, we explored questions that these new directions raise for institutions, the strategies that institutions are using to make choices among the available paths, the stakeholders involved, and the new programs and projects that CNI’s members are planning or have implemented. Our emphasis was on breadth rather than deep explorations of very specific issues; often we were most interested in understanding how institutions were shaping the questions and how they were exploring them, since many of these questions are far from resolution. Roundtable participants included representatives from academic libraries and information technology units from research institutions and liberal arts colleges, library associations, publishers, and aggregators/intermediaries.

Digital Scholarship | "A Quarter-Century as an Open Access Publisher"

"The Adoption of Open Access Funds among Canadian Academic Research Libraries, 2008-2012"

Crystal Hampson has published "The Adoption of Open Access Funds among Canadian Academic Research Libraries, 2008-2012" in Partnership: The Canadian Journal of Library and Information Practice and Research.

Here's an excerpt:

To examine academic libraries' responses to OA publishing charges, this article explores the adoption of OA funds among Canadian academic research libraries from 2008 to 2012 by analyzing results from a series of previously published surveys. The findings are then examined in light of Everett Rogers' Innovation Diffusion Theory (IDT) to consider the question of whether or not OA funds are becoming a standard service in Canadian academic research institutions. Adoption in Canada is briefly compared to that in the United States and United Kingdom. The paper concludes that, as of 2012, OA funds were becoming common but were not a standard service in Canadian academic research libraries and that libraries were actively participating in the development of OA funding models.

Digital Scholarship | "A Quarter-Century as an Open Access Publisher"

"Privacy by Design and the Online Library Environment"

Dan Blum has published "Privacy by Design and the Online Library Environment" in Information Standards Quarterly.

Here's an excerpt:

This paper focuses on ways that libraries can incorporate advanced identity management concepts within the Privacy By Design framework to meet their needs as they continue their transition from the brick, mortar, and paper era to an era of mixed physical and digital content. In order to add value over and above what researchers can find with search engines and freely available content on the Internet, libraries must excel at supporting both ordinary knowledge seekers and academic researchers in fulfilling their content-and collaboration-related needs. Increasingly, libraries must support a seamless, personalized, and collaborative experience for diverse audiences across the full lifecycle from content discovery to content delivery while at the same time protecting patrons' privacy and intellectual property prerogatives.

Digital Scholarship | "A Quarter-Century as an Open Access Publisher"

UC Shared Print RoadMap for 2014-2018: Recommended Activities to Pursue

The California Digital Library has released UC Shared Print RoadMap for 2014-2018: Recommended Activities to Pursue.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Key projects and policies that our libraries will pursue and explore include:

  • Coordinated print serials archiving to UCs two Regional Library Facilities and a deduplication service
  • A retrospective shared print monographs program
  • Coordinated digitization and print retention of State Documents
  • Disclosure of UC shared print collections in union catalogs such as OCLC WorldCat and PAPR using the OCLC Shared Print Metadata Guidelines
  • Revision of UC Libraries' "persistence policy" to support extramural partnerships
  • Assessing existing shared print policies and projects and making adjustments to them

Digital Scholarship | "A Quarter-Century as an Open Access Publisher"

Dean of the University Libraries at University of Maryland, College Park

The University of Maryland, College Park is recruiting a Dean of the University Libraries.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

The University of Maryland, College Park invites applications and nominations for the position of Dean of the University Libraries. The University is a member of the Association of American Universities (AAU) and is the flagship of the University System of Maryland. Located in the Baltimore-Washington corridor within easy commuting distance of both the nation's capital and the state capital, the University enjoys close proximity to the Library of Congress and National Archives as well as to numerous specialized libraries such as the Folger Shakespeare Library and the National Library of Medicine. The University ranks among the top 20 public universities, with over 35,000 students engaged in nationally and internationally recognized programs in undergraduate and graduate studies.

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"The Effect of Discovery Systems on Online Journal Usage: A Longitudinal Study"

Michael Levine-Clark et al. have published The Effect of Discovery Systems on Online Journal Usage: A Longitudinal Study in Insights: The UKSG Journal.

Here's an excerpt:

Many academic libraries are implementing discovery services as a way of giving their users a single comprehensive search option for all library resources. These tools are designed to change the research experience, yet very few studies have investigated the impact of discovery service implementation. This study examines one aspect of that impact by asking whether usage of publisher-hosted journal content changes after implementation of a discovery tool. Libraries that have begun using the four major discovery services have seen an increase in usage of this content, suggesting that for this particular type of material, discovery services have a positive impact on use. Though all discovery services significantly increased usage relative to a no discovery service control group, some had a greater impact than others, and there was extensive variation in usage change among libraries using the same service. Future phases of this study will look at other types of content.

Digital Scholarship | "A Quarter-Century as an Open Access Publisher"

"Focusing on Student Research In The Institutional Repository DigitalCommons@USU"

Danielle Barandiaran et al. have published "Focusing on Student Research In The Institutional Repository DigitalCommons@USU" in College & Research Libraries News.

Here's an excerpt:

Student research is a significant and rapidly growing component of the institutional repository (IR) at Utah State University (USU). A briefing paper prepared for Open Access Scholarly Information Sourcebook (OASIS) points to student works as one of nine purposes for an IR.1 It is not uncommon to find undergraduate and graduate theses and dissertations in IRs. In 2013, an analysis of 283 U.S. repositories using the bepress or DSpsace platforms indicated 71% include this type of student research. However, other student research such as posters, presentations, or papers were only found in 38% of these repositories. Utah State University's IR actively solicits student research resulting from research groups and individuals, as well as posters and creative works featured in the university's Student Showcase symposium.

Digital Scholarship | "A Quarter-Century as an Open Access Publisher"

Hillman University Librarian and Director at University of Pittsburgh

The University of Pittsburgh is recruiting a Hillman University Librarian and Director.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

The University of Pittsburgh invites nominations for this position of the Hillman University Librarian and Director, University Library System (ULS). This is an exceptional opportunity for an accomplished and innovative leader to continue to advance one of the nation's leading academic research libraries and serve as a strong advocate for the essential role of the library in learning, teaching, and research at Pitt. One of the top research universities in the country, Pitt is a state-related research university and part of the Commonwealth System of Higher Education in Pennsylvania. Current enrollment in Pitt's 16 undergraduate and graduate schools and 4 regional campuses is 34,934 (25,074 undergraduate and 9,860 graduate students). In 2013, the University's federally funded research summed to almost $700 million. Pitt is ranked 7th overall and 4th among public institutions in the most recent U.S. National Science Foundation's rankings of federally funded research at universities and colleges. A member of the Association of American Universities, Pitt is currently ranked 62nd among research universities nationally and 20th among public research universities by the US News & World Report.

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Registering Researchers in Authority Files

OCLC Research has released Registering Researchers in Authority Files.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Registering researchers in some type of authority file or identifier system has become more compelling as both institutions and researchers recognize the need to compile their scholarly output. The report presents functional requirements and recommendations for six stakeholders: researchers, funders, university administrators, librarians, identity management systems and aggregators (including publishers). It also provides an overview of the researcher identifier landscape, changes in the field, emerging trends, and opportunities.

Digital Scholarship | "A Quarter-Century as an Open Access Publisher"

Arizona State University Names James J. O’Donnell as University Librarian

Arizona State University has named James J. O'Donnell as its University Librarian.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

O'Donnell received his bachelor of arts degree at Princeton and doctorate from Yale. He served as provost and professor of classics at Georgetown University for a decade, after a career at Bryn Mawr, Cornell and the University of Pennsylvania. . . .

O'Donnell has also been engaged in digital innovation for almost 25 years, starting with the establishment of the oldest online open access journal in the humanities, "Bryn Mawr Classical Review." He taught the first MOOC in 1994, introducing 500 students around the world to the work and thought of St. Augustine. He served from 1996-2002 as the chief information officer of the University of Pennsylvania.

Digital Scholarship | "A Quarter-Century as an Open Access Publisher"

Library Publishing Directory, Second Edition

Library Publishing Coalition has released the Library Publishing Directory, second edition .

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Published just in time for Open Access Week, the Directory illustrates the many ways in which libraries are actively transforming and advancing scholarly communications in partnership with scholars, students, university presses, and others.

In documenting the breadth and depth of activities in this field, this resource aims to articulate the unique value of library publishing; establish it as a significant and growing community of practice; and to raise its visibility within a number of stakeholder communities, including administrators, funding agencies, other scholarly publishers, librarians, and content creators.

Digital Scholarship | "A Quarter-Century as an Open Access Publisher"

Vice Provost and University Librarian at Columbia University

Columbia University is recruiting a Vice Provost and University Librarian.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

The University is seeking a dynamic individual to lead a large, complex, globally recognized academic research library system with remarkable growth in its collections in recent years and highly talented staff undertaking an impressive range of innovative professional assignments.

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University of Chicago Names Brenda Johnson Library Director and University Librarian

Brenda Johnson has been appointed Library Director and University Librarian at the University of Chicago for a five-year term.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Johnson currently serves as Ruth Lilly Dean of University Libraries at Indiana University, Bloomington—a position she has held since 2010. She succeeds Judith Nadler, who retired in June after nearly five decades of service to UChicago.

Before coming to Indiana University, Johnson was University Librarian at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She spent more than 20 years at the University of Michigan, where she served as Associate University Librarian for Public Services, a position with responsibility over that institution's 19 libraries.

Digital Scholarship | "A Quarter-Century as an Open Access Publisher"