Category: Research Libraries

Director of Libraries at MIT Libraries

The MIT Libraries are recruiting a Director of Libraries.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

Responsible for the MIT Libraries and oversight of the MIT Press, the Director of the MIT Libraries uses visionary leadership to guide both organizations through times of transformation in their respective industries. The Director is expected to leverage an increasingly networked and collaborative information environment as an important partner with MIT's academic and administrative units to advance the Institute's research, teaching, and global agendas in alignment with its mission and values. Reporting directly to the Provost, the Director secures the support and resources necessary for providing outstanding innovative and creative collections and services across a broad range of research disciplines to a world-class scholarly community. The Director will play a prominent role in shaping the larger scholarly communication landscape at MIT and beyond. S/he is expected to grow the Libraries resource development program. Key strategic opportunities for the Libraries include MIT's exploration of new modes of learning and global engagement, upcoming investments in reshaping library spaces, and advancing MIT's commitment and influence in the area of Open Access. S/he is expected to actively build and develop a diverse, skilled, and engaged workforce dedicated to an inclusive MIT community. As the senior officer at MIT with management responsibility for the MIT Press, the Director of Libraries provides strategic guidance to the Press in accordance with its goals, which include greater international engagement and a strong portfolio of evolving business models.

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"Digital Preservation File Format Policies of ARL Member Libraries: An Analysis"

Kyle Rimkus et al. have published "Digital Preservation File Format Policies of ARL Member Libraries: An Analysis" in D-Lib Magazine.

Here's an excerpt:

In the interest of gaining a broad view of contemporary digital preservation practice in North American research libraries, this paper presents the findings of a study of file format policies at Association of Research Libraries (ARL) member institutions. It is intended to present the digital preservation community with an assessment of the level of trust currently placed in common file formats in digital library collections and institutional repositories. Beginning with a summary of file format research to date, the authors describe the research methodology they used to collect and analyze data from the file format policies of ARL Library repositories and digital library services. The paper concludes with a presentation and analysis of findings that explore levels of confidence placed in image, text, audio, video, tabular data, software application, presentation, geospatial, and computer program file formats. The data show that file format policies have evolved little beyond the document and image digitization standards of traditional library reformatting programs, and that current approaches to file format policymaking must evolve to meet the challenges of research libraries' expanding digital repository services.

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Ithaka S+R US Library Survey 2013

Ithaka S+R has released the Ithaka S+R US Library Survey 2013.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

In the Ithaka S+R US Library Survey 2013 report we examine how the leaders of academic libraries are approaching systemic changes in their environment and the opportunities and constraints they face in leading their organizations. While exploring key topics covered in our 2010 survey of library directors, such as strategic planning, collecting practices, and library services, in 2013 we also introduced a new emphasis on organizational dynamics, leadership issues, and undergraduate services.

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Dean of Libraries and Elizabeth D. Rockwell Chair at University of Houston

The University of Houston is recruiting a Dean of Libraries and Elizabeth D. Rockwell Chair.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

The University of Houston invites nominations and applications for the position of Dean of Libraries and Elizabeth D. Rockwell Chair. The Dean of Libraries leads the University Libraries and advances the University's mission of research and teaching by ensuring the provision of outstanding library services. The University Libraries comprises the M.D. Anderson Library and three branch libraries (Music, Optometry, and Architecture and Art). The Dean of Libraries serves as the chief executive of the Libraries, with responsibility for oversight of all administrative activities, including budget and personnel management. The Dean provides programmatic and strategic leadership to the Libraries and plays a critical role in the Libraries' development activities. The Dean represents the Libraries within the University, and at the local, state, and national levels. The Dean reports directly to the Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost and is a member of the Council of Deans. . . .

The University Libraries employs over 69 professionals and 135 support staff. Overall, the campus libraries provide access to over 3.1 million volumes. The UH Libraries are a member of the Association of Research Libraries, the Greater Western Library Alliance, the Hathi Trust, the Council on Library and Information Resources, the Digital Library Federation, and the Texas Digital Library. The Libraries enjoy an endowment of over $7 million, including three endowed chairs.

The Libraries actively supported the University's Tier One effort and continues to focus on UH System's Strategic Initiatives. The Libraries' 2013-2016 Strategic Directions reflect the University's top priorities and position the Libraries to be a contributor to these priorities.

The University of Houston is a publicly supported university, enrolling nearly 40,000 students. The University of Houston campus comprises 13 colleges and schools offering close to 80 degree programs. The University holds the classification of research university with very high activity, the highest Carnegie Foundation designation. Reflecting the multicultural community of metropolitan Houston, UH is one of the most ethnically diverse research university campuses in the nation.

An overview of the UH Libraries and a video are available. Short biographies of Paula Myrick Short (Senior Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, UH System, and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost, UH) and Renu Khator (Chancellor, UH System, and President, UH) are available on UH's leadership page. Information about the UH System and its four component universities is available at its website.

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Participatory Design in Academic Libraries: New Reports and Findings

The Council on Library and Information Resources has released Participatory Design in Academic Libraries: New Reports and Findings.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

This report looks at how staff at eight academic institutions gained new insight about how students and faculty use their libraries, and how the staff are using these findings to improve library technologies, space, and services.

Participatory design is a relatively recent approach to understanding library user behavior. It is based on techniques used in anthropological and ethnographic observation. The report's editor, anthropologist Nancy Fried Foster, led several participatory design workshops for CLIR from 2007 to 2013.

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Université de Montréal Will Cancel about 75% of Wiley Online Library Periodicals

The Université de Montréal will cancel about 75% of its Wiley Online Library periodicals.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Out of 1510 periodicals in the Wiley Online Library, the Université de Montréal is cancelling subscriptions to 1142 titles at the end of January. As a result, and from this point on, the articles found in the cancelled titles will no longer be available on-line. However, access to earlier issues will be entirely maintained.

This action results from a process that started a long while ago. The financial cut-backs imposed by the Québec government only accelerated the decision process. The result of the analysis is simple: libraries have been driven to the wall because of the yearly rise of subscriptions to periodicals that hover between 3% and 6%. They cannot go on cutting back the acquisition of monographs to compensate for such price increases. As a result, this conclusion, as well as the adopted solution, would have been the same a few years down the line, independently of the financial context.

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SCOAP3 High-Energy Physics Open Access Publishing Initiative Launches on 1/1/2014

The SCOAP3 High-Energy Physics open access publishing initiative will launch on 1/1/2014.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

After intense preparations and consensus building, CERN1 has today confirmed that the SCOAP3 Open Access publishing initiative will start on 1 January 2014. With the support of partners in 24 countries2, a vast fraction of scientific articles in the field of High-Energy Physics will become Open Access at no cost for any author: everyone will be able to read them; authors will retain copyright; and generous licenses will enable wide re-use of this information.

Convened at CERN this is the largest scale global Open Access initiative ever built, involving an international collaboration of over one thousand libraries, library consortia and research organizations. SCOAP3 enjoys the support of funding agencies and has been established in co-operation with leading publishers. . . .

The objective of SCOAP3 is to grant unrestricted access to scientific articles appearing in scientific journals, which so far have only been available to scientists through certain university libraries, and generally unavailable to the wider public. Open dissemination of preliminary information, in the form of pre-peer-review articles known as preprints, has been the norm in High-Energy Physics and related disciplines for two decades. SCOAP3 sustainably extends this opportunity to high-quality peer-review service, making final version of articles available, within the Open Access tenets of free and unrestricted dissemination of science with intellectual property rights vested in the authors and wide re-use opportunities. In the SCOAP3 model, libraries and funding agencies pool resources currently used to subscribe to journals, in co-operation with publishers, and use them to support the peer-review system directly instead.

The SCOAP3 initiative looks forward to establishing further partnerships in the Asia-Pacific region, the Americas, Europe, Africa and the Middle East, where scientists will enjoy the advantages of Open Access and many libraries and library consortia will benefit from reductions in their subscription costs. . . .

More information–publishers and scientific societies participating in SCOAP3:
Chinese Academy of Sciences
Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft
Elsevier
Hindawi
Institute of Physics Publishing
Jagellonian University
Oxford University Press
Physical Society of Japan
SISSA Medialab
Springer
Società Italiana di Fisica

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"Knowledge Level of Library Deans and Directors in Copyright Law"

John Eye has published "Knowledge Level of Library Deans and Directors in Copyright Law" in the latest issue of the Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication.

Here's an excerpt:

A random sample of academic library deans and directors was asked to complete a web-based survey articulating their level of copyright knowledge and perceptions associated with how they are able to apply it toward their work with policies. . . .

Deans and directors of academic libraries have a working knowledge of copyright law but more training is needed to provide library professionals with the tools necessary to carry out the work of effectively managing collections and services, especially in this new and emerging digital environment

.

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"Cost Differentials between E-Books and Print in Academic Libraries"

College & Research Libraries has released an e-print of "Cost Differentials between E-Books and Print in Academic Libraries."

Here's an excerpt:

A survey conducted at Auburn University at Montgomery (AUM) has confirmed for academic libraries the work of Gray and Copeland on e-books being more expensive than print for public libraries. For AUM, the mean cost for e-books are significantly higher than for the print counterpart of those titles. The cost differentials between the two formats show e-books as being consistently higher than print in initial price. This consistency holds true across all LC classifications, regardless of whether or not the title is published by a university press or a commercial press.

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Library Publishing Directory

The Library Publishing Coalition has released the Library Publishing Directory.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Published in October 2013, the Library Publishing Directory provides a snapshot of the publishing activities of 115 academic and research libraries, including information about the number and types of publications they produce, the services they offer authors, how they are staffed and funded, and the future plans of institutions that are engaged in this growing field. . . .

Specifically it is hoped that this Directory will:

  • Introduce all readers to the emerging field of library publishing and help articulate its unique characteristics as a distinctive "publishing field."
  • Facilitate collaboration among library publishers and other publishing entities, especially the university presses and learned societies that share their values.
  • Alert authors of scholarly content to a range of potential publishing partners dedicated to supporting their experimentation with new forms of scholarly communication and open access business models.

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"A Look at Altmetrics and Its Growing Significance to Research Libraries"

Emily Puckett Rodgers and Sarah Barbrow have self-archived "A Look at Altmetrics and Its Growing Significance to Research Libraries" in Deep Blue.

Here's an excerpt:

This document serves as an informational review of the emerging field and practices of alternative metrics or altmetrics. It is intended to be used by librarians and faculty members in research libraries and universities to better understand the trends and challenges associated with altmetrics in higher education. It is also intended to be used by research libraries to offer guidance on how to participate in shaping this emerging field.

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"Copyright in the Digital Age"

Kyle K. Courtney has self-archived "Copyright in the Digital Age" in SSRN.

Here's an excerpt:

The goal of this chapter is to provide the fundamental instruction for some of the most popular topics facing law libraries in the digital age. Whether it is scanning chapters for e-reserves or accessing databases online, knowledge of copyright law can help mitigate risk, and enhance our patron's services. As librarians, we want to provide whatever our patron's desire. But, we also must balance the law versus the patrons needs. Fortunately, copyright law does not always restrict a patron's uses. In many cases a solid understanding of copyright can help ease a patron's fears, or provide legal alternatives to a patron's request, or help educate the community at large.

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New Roles for New Times: Transforming Liaison Roles in Research Libraries

ARL has released New Roles for New Times: Transforming Liaison Roles in Research Libraries.

Here's an excerpt:

The liaison role in research libraries is rapidly evolving. An engagement model in which library liaisons and functional specialists collaborate to understand and address the wide range of processes in instruction and scholarship is replacing the traditional tripartite model of collections, reference, and instruction. New roles in research services, digital humanities, teaching and learning, digital scholarship, user experience, and copyright and scholarly communication are being developed at research libraries across the country, requiring professional development and re-skilling of current staff, creative approaches to increase staff capacity, the development of new spaces and infrastructure, and collaborative partnerships within libraries, across campus units, and among research institutions.

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Best of Both Worlds: Museums, Libraries, and Archives in a Digital Age

The Smithsonian has released the Best of Both Worlds: Museums, Libraries, and Archives in a Digital Age by G. Wayne Clough.

Here's an excerpt:

The review in this document illustrates how many cultural institutions have already found innovative applications for digital technology, but it is more than just a matter of "using." Digital technology will also change the basics of how these institutions work as we move forward. Collections will be shared across institutions through the linked data cloud; the public will participate in the creative activities of cultural institutions through engagement platforms; and informal education will merge with formal education. Cultural change is never easy, and while an institution might be able to avoid it for a while, this time it will be so big that no one will escape in the long run.

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"Mining for Gold: Identifying the Librarians’ Toolkit for Managing Hybrid Open Access"

Jill Emery has published "Mining for Gold: Identifying the Librarians' Toolkit for Managing Hybrid Open Access" in the latest issue of Insights: the UKSG Journal.

Here's an excerpt:

In 2012, the author and colleagues surveyed eight publishers that had been involved with the Publishing and the Ecology of European Research (PEER) project to learn about the state of hybrid journal publishing. At the same time, one of the key questions asked to a panel of librarians at the International Association of Scientific, Technical & Medical Publishers May 2012 Meeting was what role librarians would play if scholarly publishing shortly went open access (OA) across the board? From the survey of the market, and the rapid OA developments in the UK and EU that include hybrid OA, a picture has begun to emerge of what roles librarians can play with regard to supporting hybrid OA publishing at their institutions. This article focuses on developing new partnerships within a given institution, looks at new budgetary models and the tracking of local scholarship creation. Current pertinent standards are highlighted.

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"Are We Spending Too Much on Print STEM Monographs? A Method and Analysis for Improving Monograph Allocations Based on Circulation Statistics"

Jonathan Nabe has published "Are We Spending Too Much on Print STEM Monographs? A Method and Analysis for Improving Monograph Allocations Based on Circulation Statistics" in the latest issue of Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship.

Here's an excerpt:

Circulation studies provide evidence of demand for monographs, but it is necessary to determine the goal of any analysis in order to select which statistics will be used. The goal of this analysis was to determine the appropriateness of expenditures on monographs within the STEM fields at Morris Library over a ten-year period. Percentage of unique title circulation and average circulation per title are best suited for this purpose. Results show variation among disciplines, but over-expenditure in all. Analysis of disciplines can aid in determining appropriate allocations for monographs, and analysis of subdisciplines can aid in targeting monograph acquisitions within any discipline.

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Digital Image Collections and Services, SPEC Kit 335

ARL has released Digital Image Collections and Services, SPEC Kit 335.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

ARL has published Digital Image Collections and Services, SPEC Kit 335, which examines how research libraries and their parent institutions have responded to the transition from analog to digital images and the growth of digital images available from commercial vendors and/or created within institutions or their libraries. The survey gathers information about current practices relating to the development and management of institutional digital image collections and the acquisition and use of licensed image databases.

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"New Frontiers in Open Access for Collection Development: Perspectives from Canadian Research Libraries"

IFLA has released "New Frontiers in Open Access for Collection Development: Perspectives from Canadian Research Libraries" by K. Jane Burpee and Leila Fernandez.

Here's an excerpt:

As the push for open access (OA) burgeons around the globe, it is important to examine OA as it relates to collection development practices. Canada has its own particular set of characteristics and approaches to service delivery based on its history and context. Like our global colleagues, opportunities for collection development in Canada include the support of OA journals, repositories, monographs and electronic theses. The strengthening of OA in Canada is tied closely with other issues. Political and educational realities as well as geographic spread are affecting the way the movement is strengthening and impacting collection development practices. In this context, we share the results of a study examining the scholarly communication landscape in Canadian research libraries. The results of interviews with librarians, who are leaders in scholarly communication activities at their own institutions, showcase the prominent role OA plays in enhancing collections at Canadian institutions. Collaboration and the role of cooperative collection development are covered. The paper concludes with recommendations for strengthening access to open scholarship in libraries regardless of their geographic location.

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Riding the Waves or Caught in the Tide? Insights from the IFLA Trend Report

IFLA has released Riding the Waves or Caught in the Tide? Insights from the IFLA Trend Report.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

In the global information environment, time moves quickly and there's an abundance of commentators trying to keep up. With each new technological development, a new report emerges assessing its impact on different sectors of society. The IFLA Trend Report takes a broader approach and identifies five high level trends shaping the information society, spanning access to education, privacy, civic engagement and transformation. Its findings reflect a year's consultation with a range of experts and stakeholders from different disciplines to map broader societal changes occurring, or likely to occur in the information environment.

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"How to Scuttle a Scholarly Communication Initiative"

Dorothea Salo has published "How to Scuttle a Scholarly Communication Initiative" in the latest issue of the Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication.

Here's an excerpt:

Scholarly communication initiatives such as institutional repositories (IRs), library-sponsored publishing initiatives, open-access author-fee funds, copyright training and consulting, faculty-publication registries, and open-access publisher memberships must therefore be rapidly and effectively squelched, lest the system change in a fashion that disintermediates the existing pattern of library work. If these initiatives flourish, libraries will find themselves in the shoes of abbot Johannes Trithemius, whose De laude scriptorum (1494) presciently railed against the damage that Gutenberg's printing press would do to monasteries' lucrative scriptoria. . . .

Fortunately, scholarly communication initiatives are straightforward to scuttle, even when foisted upon an otherwise-responsible library by the provost's office or the faculty senate. Given the natural hierarchy of most reputable academic libraries. . ., it is of course easiest to put a stop to these misguided efforts from a leadership position, but in truth, any academic librarian can stop them in their tracks. Tried and true, proven-effective techniques follow.

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"Laying the Groundwork for Newspaper Preservation through Collaboration and Communication: The Texas Digital Newspaper Program"

Ana Krahmer and Mark Phillips have self-archived "Laying the Groundwork for Newspaper Preservation through Collaboration and Communication: The Texas Digital Newspaper Program" in the UNT Digital Library.

Here's an excerpt:

University of North Texas Libraries established the Texas Digital Newspaper Program (TDNP) to digitize any Texas newspaper title, of any date, and to digitally preserve and make them available via The Portal to Texas History. Through site visits to multiple Texas libraries and personal interviews with librarians, genealogists, educators, students, and historians, UNT Libraries prioritized newspaper digitization within the content scope for The Portal to Texas History and determined processes for acquiring and ingesting multiple formats of newspapers, including from physical papers, microfilm, and born-digital PDF print masters. . . .

This presentation will elaborate on the financial, communicational, and technological processes involved in building the Texas Digital Newspaper Program. UNT Libraries digitally preserves and makes freely available, via The Portal to Texas History, over 1 million pages of Texas newspapers, spanning from 1829 to the present. The Texas Digital Newspaper Program is a case study in digital preservation and open access to digitized newspapers and is utilized by multiple communities of users, including genealogists, academic and lay historians, and K-12 and university researchers.

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Library Publishing Coalition Launches Website

The Library Publishing Coalition has launched a website.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The Library Publishing Coalition (LPC)—a library led, two-year initiative to advance the field of library publishing—has launched its new website at http://www.librarypublishing.org/. Current LPC activities include development of a Shared Documentation Portal that hosts model documents, compilation of a Directory of Library Publishing Services, and planning for a forum to be held in March 2014.

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"Linking Information Seeking Patterns with Purpose, Use, Value, and Return on Investment of Academic Library Journals"

Donald W. King and Carol Tenopir have published "Linking Information Seeking Patterns with Purpose, Use, Value, and Return on Investment of Academic Library Journals" in the latest issue of Evidence Based Library and Information Practice.

Here's an excerpt:

The emphasis of this paper is to demonstrate the relationship of how purposes of reading scholarly journals (e.g., research, teaching, current awareness, etc.) lead to the information seeking patterns used by them (e.g., how they identify articles that are read, where they obtain them, etc.), which dictates certain aspects of use (e.g., how much is read, age of articles read, format of the articles, etc.), which is related to the positive outcomes or value of reading (e.g., increased productivity, improved research or teaching, saving readers' time or money, etc.), which serves as return components of the ROI of academic library journal collections.

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"Economics of Scholarly Communication in Transition"

Heather Morrison has published "Economics of Scholarly Communication in Transition" in the latest issue of First Monday.

Here's an excerpt:

Academic library budgets are the primary source of revenue for scholarly journal publishing. There is more than enough money in the budgets of academic libraries to fund a fully open access scholarly journal publishing system. Seeking efficiencies, such as a reasonable average cost per article, will be key to a successful transition. This article presents macro level economic data and analysis illustrating the key factors and potential for cost savings.

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"Educational Fair Use Brief in Support of Georgia State University on Behalf of Amici Curiae Academic Authors and Legal Scholars"

David R. Hansen et al. have self-archived "Educational Fair Use Brief in Support of Georgia State University on Behalf of Amici Curiae Academic Authors and Legal Scholars" in SSRN.

Here's an excerpt:

In this case, Plaintiff Publishers accuse GSU and its faculty of violating their copyrights through this practice. But, as the district court correctly found, such uses are fair, especially because they primarily use factual information to promote the purposes of education and teaching, the amount taken was reasonable in light of its purpose, and because Plaintiffs' evidence of a cognizable copyright market harm was speculative at best. However, the district court erred when it incorrectly concluded that these uses are not transformative. Using an unduly narrow definition of the concept, it failed to consider how educators repurpose scholarly works in productive ways that bring new meaning to and understanding of the works used.

As scholars and educators who produce and repurpose such works, amici urge this Court to affirm that these uses constitute a transformative use under the first fair use factor, and to reaffirm the findings under the other factors that these uses are fair. A finding of fair use in this case not only furthers the underlying goals of scholarship and education – access to knowledge – but also the very purposes of the Copyright Act itself.

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