Scholarly Communication

Digital Initiatives Librarian at West Chester University

Oversee the conception, development, and implementation of digital projects

Support in the acquisition of born-digital content, web-archiving, and other digital collecting initiatives

Develop the vision for digital content hosting and sharing across a variety of platforms, including policies, workflows, procedures, and the selection and maintenance of various CMS

Develop the vision for digital asset management and preservation, including policies, workflows, procedures, and selection and maintenance of the libraries’ dedicated server spaces and DAMS

https://tinyurl.com/3xy62wvj

“Open Infrastructures for Responsible Research Assessment: the CoARA Working Group publishes Its First Report”

The OI4RRA report stresses that transitioning to OIs requires institutions and stakeholders to identify the advantages that OIs offer in comparison with closed systems. These can be summarised in four key contributions.

In contrast to the traditional focus on publications and journal-based metrics, OIs support the consideration of a broad range of scholarly contributions in research evaluations.

OIs have the ability to integrate data-driven indicators with the nuance of contextual and narrative based information.

Thirdly, interoperability paired with community-driven governance for evaluations promote the uptake of best practices and foster trust.

Lastly, an emphasis on transparent data automation streamlines workflows, allowing researchers to devote more time to actual research.

https://tinyurl.com/vasmmrsh

Open Infrastructures for Responsible Research Assessment: Principles and Framework

“Questioning the Predator of the Predatory Journals: How Fair Are Global Publishing Standards?”

What is concerning now is far from just publishing in predatory journals. It is the new emerging trend where academics and non-academics misuse the term ‘predatory’ by applying it to any lesser-known publishers or those publishers mentioned in blog lists of predatory journals. This oversimplification can blur the boundary between what is actually predatory and what is not. It prevents from having any possible scholarly discussions. It can delegitimise any legitimate emerging journal and even discourage researchers who lack funding from attaining any form of publication. Which means that this misuse of the term, even unintentionally, has the potential to marginalise academic communities. Considering this trend, it is vital to educate ourselves on the distinction between predatory journals and what is regarded as a new, lesser-known emerging journal.

https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1662

“The Business of Transformative Agreements”

Large publishers are adopting a transformative approach because of a combination of needs and environmental factors: their main potential for growth is to generate more revenue from existing customers and products; TA reduce administrative charges in comparison with collecting APCs; TA are often consortial, again reducing costs associated with multiple negotiations with individual libraries; institutions such as libraries are more willing to pay for academic digital content than individuals; government incentives influence researchers to seek OA publishing; Researcher-publisher relationships have been damaged by high APCs; and TA stabilize revenue compared with APCs. In addition, there is an added incentive of a potential for higher revenue once this model is established, and for researchers to advocate for and expect TA from libraries.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2025.103020

“NIH Cuts ICR [Indirect Cost Recovery]– Implications for Research Institutions and Scholarly Publishing”

Long-term it is unlikely that an institution can cover the kind of budgetary shortfall this ICR cut represents. . . . If NIH grants are not financially sustainable for an institution, the institution might reduce or eliminate NIH applications or even seek to end an existing grant contract. . . .

Publishers should also anticipate additional subscription cancellations and declining interest in transformative and pure publish agreements from research institutions. Library support for research is factored into an institution’s ICR and is an infrastructure expense that is easier to cut than, for example, support for mandated regulatory compliance. . . .

As institutions face budget shortfalls, administrative support staff—who handle essential tasks like grant management, compliance reporting, and research coordination—may be among the first to be let go. . . .

[P]ublishers that charge APCs for open access publishing may be buffered against some of the ICR cut implications because APCs are eligible to be budgeted as direct costs.

https://tinyurl.com/ym9mrppb

From “NIH Announces It’s Slashing Funding for Indirect Research Costs“

In the agency’s announcement, the NIH’s Office of Policy for Extramural Research Administration, or OPERA, wrote that $9 billion of the $35 billion total spent on research grants in fiscal year 2023 was allocated from the agency for indirect costs, which cover things like equipment, operations, maintenance, accounting and personnel.

“Librarians at the Center of Peer Review Training: Increasing Collaboration among Scholarly Communication Stakeholders”

Librarians can organise peer review training, such as the six-part peer review series ‘Peer Review in Scholarly Journals: History, People, and Models’ delivered at UIUC, and build networks with key stakeholders to improve them.

Knowledge of peer review processes is still lacking for academic authors at all career levels.

Peer review training initiatives should be tailored to the information needs of researchers.

By partnering with other scholarly communication stakeholders, librarians are uniquely equipped to effectively deliver programs and services which can increase awareness of and interest in scholarly communication.

https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1657

Health Sciences and Digital Scholarship Librarian at Lenoir-Rhyne University

The Health Sciences and Digital Scholarship Librarian will focus on information literacy sessions, reference and research services, and collection management. . . .

Additionally, the role includes collaboration with faculty, students, and staff on digital scholarship, data analytics, and online academic publishing.

https://tinyurl.com/mrxyft7m

Archivist (Digital Preservation) at University of Glasgow

To manage and develop Archives & Special Collections (ASC) digital preservation services, providing expert professional knowledge and expertise on ensuring the long-term preservation and accessibility of the Library’s unique and distinctive born-digital collections.

https://tinyurl.com/yspxz2fd

"News and Views: How Much Content Can AI Legally Exploit?"

Most OA licenses, even permissive ones like CC BY, require attribution. However, generative AI models inherently strip attribution from the data they process, making compliance nearly impossible. Specialist AIs might be trained to circumvent this, but the bulk of big-name gen AI tools don’t. Compliance with the most basic OA requirement of attribution is unworkable.

Additionally, while traditional licenses clearly delineate permissible use, OA licenses often depend on interpretations of “non-commercial” or “derivative” use that may vary by jurisdiction.

https://tinyurl.com/562k8kee

"An Assessment of Whether Educated Non-researcher Audiences Understand How to Reuse Research Data"

Most participants reported that they figured out how to reuse the data, although their self-reports can be an overestimated assessment.. . . Data set type tends to play a role in understanding how to reuse data sets and the purpose of data sets. Participants reported that unless a data set is self-explanatory, instructions on data set reuse and the purpose of data set were necessary for understanding how to reuse data set.

https://doi.org/10.1108/EL-10-2023-0241

Paywall: "A ‘Delve’ into the Evidence of AI in Production of Academic Business Literature"

The author performed a t-test using the average growth rates of articles published in the database ProQuest ABI/INFORM Global containing keywords or phrases purported to be commonly used in content generated by AI during the years before and after common generative AI availability. Results show evidence that publication rates after generative AI availability experienced an improbably high deviation from the norm.

https://doi.org/10.1080/08963568.2024.2420300

Digital Library Application Developer at Virginia Tech

-Primary responsibilities include designing, developing, and deploying code to aid in the ingest, retrieval and preservation of the digital object(s) into the digital library platform.

-Responsible for code development, fixing bugs and adding changes/enhancements to the digital library applications.

-Responsible for maintaining, testing, and evaluating components to ensure the components in the digital library meet accessibility standards and regulations.

https://tinyurl.com/yckdzmkj

Coordinator of Music Metadata and Digitization at University of North Texas

The UNT Libraries seeks an innovative thinker with strong people skills to plan, coordinate, create, and oversee the entry of high-quality metadata and digitization workflows for the UNT Music Library (http://www.library.unt.edu/music). Under the general supervision of the Head of Music Technical Services, the Coordinator of Music Metadata and Digitization will oversee the description of digital collections and digitization of physical collections, including hiring, training, and supervising student assistants.

https://tinyurl.com/bdh3z24e

"Geographical and Disciplinary Coverage of Open Access Journals: OpenAlex, Scopus and WoS"

This study aims to compare the geographical and disciplinary coverage of OA journals in three databases: OpenAlex, Scopus and the WoS. We used the ROAD database, managed by the ISSN International Centre, as a reference database which indexes 62,701 OA active resources (as of May 2024). Among the 62,701 active resources indexed in the ROAD database, the Web of Science indexes 6,157 journals, while Scopus indexes 7,351, and OpenAlex indexes 34,217. A striking observation is the presence of 25,658 OA journals exclusively in OpenAlex, whereas only 182 journals are exclusively present in WoS and 373 in Scopus. The geographical analysis focusses on two levels: continents and countries. As for disciplinary comparison, we use the ten disciplinary levels of the ROAD database. Moreover, our findings reveal a striking similarity in OA journal coverage between WoS and Scopus. However, while OpenAlex offers better inclusivity and indexing, it is not without biases. WoS and Scopus predictably favor journals from Europe, North America and Oceania. Although OpenAlex presents a much more balanced indexing, certain regions and countries remain relatively underrepresented. Typically, Africa is proportionally as under-represented in OpenAlex as it is in WoS, and some emerging countries are proportionally less represented in OpenAlex than in WoS and Scopus. These results underscore a marked similarity in OA journal indexing between WoS and Scopus, while OpenAlex aligns more closely with the distribution observed in the ROAD database, although it also exhibits some representational biases.

https://cnrs.hal.science/hal-04745665v1

Digital Preservation Production Manager at University of Michigan

The Digital Preservation Production Manager joins the Digital Preservation Unit to help lead the design and implementation of a comprehensive library-wide digital preservation program. You will take the lead in building and managing the production aspects of the library’s born-digital preservation program, including several existing archiving and preservation solutions and the daily activities of our Digital Preservation Lab, which serves as the center of the library’s digital archeological work and an incubation space for solutions to be implemented throughout the library.

https://tinyurl.com/n49an5m7

DLF: "2023 NDSA Storage Survey Report Published"

Some major takeaways from the report include:

The amount of preservation storage required for all managed copies appeared to stabilize relative to previous surveys. Fewer organizations reported higher allocations of storage, but the anticipated need for storage over the next three years remains elevated.
Only 28% of respondents currently participate in a cooperative system – down from 45% in 2019 – and 63% indicate they are not considering a distributed storage cooperative. The use of commercial cloud storage providers rose from 46% in 2019 to 55% in 2023.
Heavy use of an onsite storage element was reported by academic institutions (91%), archives (88%), and government agencies (71%). It also shows that use of onsite storage is most often combined with use of either independently managed offsite storage or commercial cloud storage managed by the organization.
Leading commercial offsite storage providers used by academic institutions are Amazon Web Services (56%), and APTrust (16%). For archives, Amazon Web Services (36%) and Preservica (21%) are the most prevalent. Non-profits, museums, historical societies and public libraries use Amazon Web Services 45% of the time.
52% of respondents said their organization is considering their environmental impact during storage planning.

https://tinyurl.com/4627ffy3

Social Media Started Because of a Blizzard: "Ward Christensen, Early Visionary of Social Media, Dies at 78"

Housebound during a 1978 blizzard, he and a friend began devising the first computer bulletin board, a forerunner of online services like Reddit, TikTok and Facebook. . . .

As the idea spread, by word of mouth and through trade magazines, computer bulletin boards emerged from hobbyist groups across the country. These makeshift systems, a means of sharing everything from short messages to video games to software code, anticipated the rise of social media apps like Reddit, TikTok, Facebook and YouTube, as well as countless internet file-sharing services.

https://tinyurl.com/ancunh6b

Systems Librarian at Old Dominion University

The University Libraries at Old Dominion University invite applicants for a Systems Librarian. The Systems Librarian will administer, configure, troubleshoot, and coordinate the integrated library system (Alma), discovery interface (Primo), and related applications, and they will ensure reliable and efficient access to the Libraries’ collections and resources.

https://tinyurl.com/544eecws

Assistant Professor – Artificial Intelligence in LIS at San José State University

The School of Information at San José State University is pleased to announce a search for an Assistant Professor – Artificial Intelligence (AI) in LIS, beginning in August 2025, for our Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) and Bachelor of Information Science and Data Analytics (BSISDA) programs. The position will focus on AI and library & information science – a critical area of need and a high priority area for San José State University. Duties will include assisting with the design, development, and release of a new interdisciplinary minor in AI for undergraduates, as well as a new 4+1 accelerated program (a 4 year undergraduate program combining 1 year of graduate work to emerge with both a bachelors and a masters degree), and helping lead the iSchool in the AI LIS teaching and research areas.

https://tinyurl.com/5hehrex6

Systems Librarian at Nevada State University

Reporting directly to the Dean of the Library, the ideal candidate will contribute to a forward-thinking team committed to redefining the role of the university library. The Systems Librarian oversees the implementation, maintenance, support, and enhancement of various library technologies, systems and integrations. This role is pivotal in delivering innovative library services and ensuring access to the Library’s comprehensive online information resources.

Audio & Moving Image Digitization Librarian at University of Michigan

The Audio & Moving Image Digitization Librarian is a full-time Librarian position versed in A/MI digitization and metadata standards. This position will expand our audio and moving image preservation program by providing technical expertise to an expanding roster of formats, update our metadata practices, overhaul our workflows, and work closely with stakeholders to support their preservation and access needs. This position will also organize and guide the work of the A/MI technician, oversee the work of interns or other temporary staff, and provide training and project management for specific projects as needed.

https://tinyurl.com/ybzmrk9u

"Mapping Research Data Landscape in Africa Using the re3data and Data Citation Index"

Despite the efforts made by most African countries in incubating the practice of research data sharing, little is known on the status of the research data sphere in the African landscape. This study was conducted to establish the status of research data and research data repositories (RDRs) in Africa. Specifically, the study intended to identify the country-wise contributions in terms of research data and research data repositories, trends of publication of research data by African countries, content type and the nature of research data repositories hosted by African countries. The study applied the quantitative research approach. The registry of research data repositories (re3data), which is the prominent worldwide registry for the research data repository, and the data citation index (DCI) hosted by the Web of Science were used in this study. Re3data and DCI index research data repositories and datasets respectively, from almost all the countries around the world. The study identified parameters that were extracted from re3data and DCI using the browse and search facilities. The extracted data were recorded into Google Sheets, refined, and analysed using MS Office Excel. The study found little contribution from the African countries regarding research data and research data repositories to re3data and DCI. The study found further that, despite the presence of a few repositories, most of them had restricted access to external users. This study concludes that African countries are still having a lot to do for the research data practices to be fully incubated. The study suggests that governments and other stakeholders should improve the facilitating conditions, including establishing relevant policies and infrastructures for the practice to be fully embraced.

https://doi.org/10.1177/02666669241284239

Clemson University at Digital Collections Archivist

Clemson University Libraries seeks an innovative, collaborative, and service-oriented Digital Collections Archivist. This faculty member will provide leadership and expertise in the collection, transfer, storage, description, and preservation of born-digital and digitized materials, including developing workflows, policies, and procedures that help staff carry out these tasks. The Digital Collections Archivist works across manuscript collections and the university archives on digital archiving projects.

https://tinyurl.com/46psafum

"The ‘Publish or Perish’ Mentality Is Fuelling Research Paper Retractions – And Undermining Science"

In the past decade, there have been more than 39,000 retractions, and the annual number of retractions is growing by around 23% each year.

Nearly half the retractions were due to issues related to the authenticity of the data. For example, in August the United States Office of Research Integrity found that Richard Eckert, a senior biochemist at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, faked data in 13 published papers. Four of these papers have been corrected, one has been retracted and the remainder are still awaiting action.

Plagiarism was the second most common reason research papers were retracted, accounting for 16% of retractions. . . .

However, the use of fake peer reviewers has increased tenfold over the past decade. There has also been an eightfold rise in publications linked to so-called “paper mills”, which are businesses that provide fake papers for a fee.

In 2022, up to 2% of all publications were from paper mills.

The prevailing reward system in academia often prioritises publication quantity over quality. When promotions, funding, and recognition are tied to the number of papers published, scientists may feel pressured to cut corners, rush experiments, or even fabricate data to meet these metrics.

Initiatives such as the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment are pushing for change. This initiative advocates for evaluating research based on its quality and societal impact rather than journal-based metrics such as impact factors or citation counts.

https://tinyurl.com/4c2pjem9

Paywall: "Creating and Evaluating MARC 21 Bibliographic Records Using ChatGPT"

The findings demonstrated that although ChatGPT was promising as an assisting tool for human catalogers, it struggled with complex bibliographic patterns and nuanced cataloging rules. Notable errors were observed in various fields, such as primary and additional authorized access points, title statements, edition statements, publication details, and series statements, highlighting areas for improvement.

https://tinyurl.com/mtj4e8cz