DigitalKoans – Page 14 – What Is the Sound of One E-Print Downloading?

"Capturing Captions: Using AI to Identify and Analyse Image Captions in a Large Dataset of Historical Book Illustrations"

This article outlines how AI methods can be used to identify image captions in a large dataset of digitised historical book illustrations. This dataset includes over a million images from 68,000 books published between the eighteenth and early twentieth centuries, covering works of literature, history, geography, and philosophy. The article has two primary objectives. First, it suggests the added value of captions in making digitized illustrations more searchable by picture content in online archives. To further this objective, we describe the methods we have used to identify captions, which can effectively be re-purposed and applied in different contexts. Second, we suggest how this research leads to new understandings of the semantics and significance of the captions of historical book illustrations. The findings discussed here mark a critical intervention in the fields of digital humanities, book history, and illustration studies.

https://tinyurl.com/bdvjespp

Assistant Director (University Collections and Digital Services) at University of Essex

A member of the Leadership Team, reporting to the Director and University Librarian, you will lead the teams covering content and collections, special collections, archives and art collections, and the digital infrastructure of the Section. . . .

The immediate priorities for the role will be to work with the team on the following areas:

Developing our services in licensed digital content, ensuring they remain responsive to the evolving needs of the University and its growing student body groupings. . . .

Developing a roadmap for the digitisation, prioritisation and management of our special collections and archives and art collections.

Developing a roadmap for our digital platforms and services, and identifying where we can use systems to be more efficient and reduce workload burden.

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"Training to Act FAIR: A Pre-Post Study on Teaching FAIR Guiding Principles to (Future) Researchers in Higher Education"

With a pre-post test design, the study evaluates the short-term effectiveness of FAIR training on students’ scientific suggestions and justifications in line with FAIR’s guiding principles. The study also assesses the influence of university legal frameworks on students’ inclination towards FAIR training. Before FAIR training, 81.1% of students suggested that scientific actions were not in line with the FAIR guiding principles. However, there is a 3.75-fold increase in suggestions that adhere to these principles after the training. Interestingly, the training does not significantly impact how students justify FAIR actions. The study observes a positive correlation between the presence of university legal frameworks on FAIR guiding principles and students’ inclination towards FAIR training.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10805-024-09547-2

Director – Research Data, Library, and Archival Services & Co-Director MBLWHOI [Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution] Library

Collaborates with the MBLWHOI Library co-director on the planning, development, and administration of the MBLWHOI Library to advance its goals while responding to future opportunities and challenges.

Provides leadership and knowledge in scientific research data curation, tools, and practices, including format migration, preservation, metadata, discovery, provenance, and data access.

Serves as liaison to institution and laboratory committees; forges strong relationships and collaborations across the institutions; articulates program goals to external and internal constituencies; advocates on behalf of the library with stakeholders, communicating the value of library resources and services in supporting the broader institution mission, initiatives, and programs.

Manages day-to-day operations of the WHOI Research Data and Library Services group, including contract negotiations and budgeting, managing employees, and overseeing physical space and collections.

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"AI and Medical Images: Addressing Ethical Challenges to Provide Responsible Access to Historical Medical Illustrations"

This article examines the ethical considerations and broader issues around access to digitised historical medical images. These illustrations and, later, photographs are often extremely sensitive, representing disability, disease, gender, and race in potentially harmful and problematic ways. In particular, the original metadata for such images can include demeaning and sometimes racist terms. Some of these images show sexually explicit and violent content, as well as content that was obtained without informed consent. Hiding these sensitive images can be tempting, and yet, archives are meant to be used, not locked away. Through a series of interviews with 10 archivists, librarians, and researchers based in the UK and US, the authors show that improved access to medical illustrations is essential to produce new knowledge in the humanities and medical research, as well as to bridge the gap between historical and modern understandings of the human body. Improving access to medical illustration can also help to address the "gender data gap", which has acquired mainstream visibility thanks to the work of activists such as Caroline Criado-Perez, the author of Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men.

https://tinyurl.com/3jek7ey4

"The Promotion and Implementation of Open Science Measures among High-Performing Journals from Brazil, Mexico, Portugal, and Spain"

This study empirically examined the promotion and implementation of open science measures among high-performing journals of Brazil, Mexico, Portugal, and Spain. Journal policy related to data sharing, materials sharing, preregistration, open peer review, and consideration of preprints and replication studies was gathered from the websites of the journals. . . . Analyses found a higher promotion of open science measures among Brazilian journals than their Portuguese counterparts, and higher promotion of open science measures among international journals than their domestic counterparts. Analyses found higher implementation of open science measures among Brazilian journals than their Portuguese and Mexican counterparts. One journal out of 40 encouraged preregistration of studies; none encouraged replication studies and none had implemented open peer review.

https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1616

Data Curation Librarian at Pennsylvania State University Libraries

This tenure-line library faculty position, based in the Research Informatics and Publishing Department’s Data Learning Center, involves developing and overseeing open data sharing services and workflows. The role includes providing guidance and support for curating, describing, sharing, and preserving research datasets.

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"Academic Authors ‘Shocked’ After Taylor & Francis Sells Access to Their Research to Microsoft AI"

One of the biggest concerns raised by Clemens [Dr Ruth Alison Clemens] is over whether it is possible for Taylor & Francis’ authors to opt out of the AI partnership with Microsoft. Clemens told The Bookseller: "There is no clarity from Taylor & Francis about whether an opt-out policy is in place or on the cards. But as they did not inform their authors about the deal in the first place, any opt-out policy is now not functional."

Taylor & Francis was paid around $10 million for the license.

https://tinyurl.com/3yyarxnj

Electronic Services Librarian at Syracuse University

The Electronic Services Librarian manages all of the Law Library’s online legal information resources to support teaching and research at the College of Law at Syracuse University (SU). This librarian confers with other members of the Law Library collection development team to assess product needs, collaborates with colleagues at the SU Libraries on shared resources, and ensures continual access to the databases offered through the Law Library website and the library catalog.

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"Big Ten Academic Alliance + Next Generation Library Publishing Announce the Launch of a Pilot Project"

The Big Ten Academic Alliance (BTAA) is excited to announce a partnership with the Next Generation Library Publishing (NGLP) project. This collaboration aims to test and enhance infrastructure solutions for academy-owned scholarly publishing programs that are open source, community-led, and rooted in academic values. The pilot project will create a unified discovery layer for the diverse publishing platforms of participating libraries, presenting them as a single, shared collection of open access materials.

Through this BTAA-funded initiative, Penn State University Libraries and Indiana University Libraries will work with the NGLP team to implement the Meru display layer, enhancing infrastructure and service models specifically for the BTAA. The project will involve migrating select content from the partners’ catalogs into the NGLP ecosystem, improving interface design, and expanding the types of content displayed. The goal is to support and strengthen academy-owned scholarly publishers with scalable solutions.

https://tinyurl.com/ychk5hc2

Digital Preservation Librarian at Pennsylvania State University Libraries

This tenure-line Digital Preservation Librarian will lead the development of the cohesive digital preservation program and the ongoing implementation of strategies and policies for the long-term preservation of and access to digital collections at the Penn State University Libraries, for both digitized and born-digital materials. . . . . The position reports to the Head of the Preservation, Conservation and Digitization Department in the Distinctive Collections and Digital Strategies division of the Libraries.

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"Estimating Global Article Processing Charges Paid to Six Publishers for Open Access Between 2019 and 20"

This study presents estimates of the global expenditure on article processing charges (APCs) paid to six publishers for open access between 2019 and 2023. APCs are fees charged for publishing in some fully open access journals (gold) and in subscription journals to make individual articles open access (hybrid). There is currently no way to systematically track institutional, national or global expenses for open access publishing due to a lack of transparency in APC prices, what articles they are paid for, or who pays them. We therefore curated and used an open dataset of annual APC list prices from Elsevier, Frontiers, MDPI, PLOS, Springer Nature, and Wiley in combination with the number of open access articles from these publishers indexed by OpenAlex to estimate that, globally, a total of $8.349 billion ($8.968 billion in 2023 US dollars) were spent on APCs between 2019 and 2023. We estimate that in 2023 MDPI ($681.6 million), Elsevier ($582.8 million) and Springer Nature ($546.6) generated the most revenue with APCs. After adjusting for inflation, we also show that annual spending almost tripled from $910.3 million in 2019 to $2.538 billion in 2023, that hybrid exceed gold fees, and that the median APCs paid are higher than the median listed fees for both gold and hybrid. Our approach addresses major limitations in previous efforts to estimate APCs paid and offers much needed insight into an otherwise opaque aspect of the business of scholarly publishing. We call upon publishers to be more transparent about OA fees.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.16551

Data Librarian at University of Nevada Las Vegas (Revised)

Reporting to the Head, Scholarly Communication and Data Services (SCADS), the Data Librarian will develop and extend the library’s role in providing expertise on data management methods and standards, open science/research, and data literacy. The Data Librarian will work collaboratively and cross-organizationally to determine researcher needs and to deliver relevant services and expertise. The librarian will help the Libraries meet curricular and research needs by increasing the visibility of available data-related resources and expertise for undergraduate, graduate, and faculty researchers and by providing expert consulting, instruction, and other coordinated programming.

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"Privacy Protection Framework for Open Data: Constructing and Assessing an Effective Approach"

This framework [Privacy Protection Framework for Open Data] aims to establish clear privacy protection measures and safeguard individuals’ privacy rights. Existing privacy protection practices were examined using content analysis, and 36 indicators across five dimensions were developed and validated through an empirical study with 437 participants. The PPFOD offers comprehensive guidelines for data openness, empowering individuals to identify privacy risks, guiding businesses to ensure legal compliance and prevent data leaks, and assisting libraries and data institutions in implementing effective privacy education and training programs, fostering a more privacy-conscious and secure data era.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lisr.2024.101312

Data Librarian at The Kinder Institute for Urban Research (Rice University)

The Kinder Institute for Urban Research (KIUR) aims to improve lives through data, research, engagement, and action. The institute is currently expanding to build out five research centers focused on key aspects shaping the social and cultural landscape of the Houston area. . . .

Describes and catalogs existing datasets into a custom online catalog. . . .

Responds to inquiries from internal researchers, external researchers, and the general public regarding specific datasets within the catalog, access to data, and use of the online data catalog.

Develops and produces dashboards, key performance indicators, trends and other recognized metrics used to monitor and report performance. . . .

Participates in the implementation of data standards and common data elements for data collection

Identifies new sources of data and methods to improve data collection, analysis and reporting

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"Tell Congress: Don’t Let Anyone Own the Law"

A large portion of the regulations we all live by (such as fire safety codes, or the national electrical code) are initially written—by industry experts, government officials, and other volunteers—under the auspices of standards development organizations (SDOs). Federal, state, or municipal policymakers then review the codes and decide whether the standard is good broad rule. The Pro Codes Act effectively endorses the claim that SDOs can "retain" copyright in codes, even after they are made law, as long as they make the codes available through a "publicly accessible" website — which means read-only, and subject to licensing limits.

https://tinyurl.com/bdrdfnr3

Digital Scholarship Specialist at Princeton University Library

The Digital Scholarship Specialist develops educational programming and consults on research projects leveraging programming languages like Python, databases, APIs, large language models, and text analysis. They will assess different tools and methods for projects, develop sustainable project plans, and identify and partner with experts across the library and university. The Specialist will engage actively with the digital scholarship field, exploring and evaluating technologies and workflows that facilitate new ways to analyze, present, and teach digital research.

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"Meta Releases the Biggest and Best Open-Source AI Model Yet"

Meta is releasing Llama 3.1, the largest-ever open-source AI model, which the company claims outperforms GPT-4o and Anthropic’s Claude 3.5 Sonnet on several benchmarks. It’s also making the Llama-based Meta AI assistant available in more countries and languages while adding a feature that can generate images based on someone’s specific likeness. . . .

Meta’s own implementation of Llama is its AI assistant, which is positioned as a general-purpose chatbot like ChatGPT and can be found [in a few weeks] in just about every part of Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp.

https://tinyurl.com/2cs552p4

Digital Archivist at University of Texas at Dallas

Digitize archival materials for the Department and manage digital assets for preservation.

Continually evaluate analog archival materials for potential digitization and identify at-risk collections or frequently requested collections for the Department.

Devise digitization workflows and train other staff members as needed.

Continually upload new Special Collections content to the library catalog and edit existing content.

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Research Applications Developer at Caltech Library

The Research Applications Developer participates in Library software development projects that support and integrate with research activities across the campus, taking leadership/ownership of specific projects as appropriate. Library services include digital repositories (CaltechAUTHORS, CaltechDATA, digital collections) and on a variety of platforms, including InvenioRDM. Working with librarians, archivists, faculty, staff, and students, the Research Applications Developer develops software that supports digital scholarship, research data management, and the integration of Library services into the work of campus research groups. The Developer has the opportunity to collaborate with librarians in the provision of software and data management instruction through the Library’s instructional program (Software and Data Carpentry).

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Paywall: "Exploring the Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence in Systematic Searching: A Comparative Case Study of a Human Librarian, ChatGPT-4 and ChatGPT-4 Turbo"

The findings suggest that AI could expand the scope of search terms and queries, automating the more repetitive and formulaic aspects of the systematic-review process, while human expertise remains crucial in refining search terms and ensuring methodological rigor. Meanwhile, challenges remain for AI tools’ capacity to access subscription-based or proprietary databases and generate sophisticated search strategies.

https://doi.org/10.1177/03400352241263532

Special Collections Digital Archivist at UCLA

The Special Collections Digital Archivist provides leadership and coordination for collecting and stewarding Library Special Collections’ digitized and born-digital materials and supports LSC efforts to provide access to special collections material across platforms. This highly collaborative position plays a critical role in cultivating strong cross-departmental relationships with key stakeholders throughout the library to enhance workflows that ensure long-term stewardship and access to digital special collections.

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"Trusted Research Environments: Analysis of Characteristics and Data Availability"

Trusted Research Environments (TREs) enable the analysis of sensitive data under strict security assertions that protect the data with technical, organizational, and legal measures from (accidentally) being leaked outside the facility. While many TREs exist in Europe, little information is available publicly on the architecture and descriptions of their building blocks and their slight technical variations. To highlight on these problems, an overview of the existing, publicly described TREs and a bibliography linking to the system description are provided. Their technical characteristics, especially in commonalities and variations, are analysed, and insight is provided into their data type characteristics and availability. The literature study shows that 47 TREs worldwide provide access to sensitive data, of which two-thirds provide data predominantly via secure remote access. Statistical offices (SOs) make the majority of sensitive data records included in this study available.

https://doi.org/10.2218/ijdc.v18i1.939

"On the Modification and Revocation of Open Source Licences"

Historically, open source commitments have been deemed irrevocable once materials are released under open source licenses. In this paper, the authors argue for the creation of a subset of rights that allows open source contributors to force users to (i) update to the most recent version of a model, (ii) accept new use case restrictions, or even (iii) cease using the software entirely. While this would be a departure from the traditional open source approach, the legal, reputational and moral risks related to open-sourcing AI models could justify contributors having more control over downstream uses. Recent legislative changes have also opened the door to liability of open source contributors in certain cases. The authors believe that contributors would welcome the ability to ensure that downstream users are implementing updates that address issues like bias, guardrail workarounds or adversarial attacks on their contributions. Finally, this paper addresses how this license category would interplay with RAIL licenses, and how it should be operationalized and adopted by key stakeholders such as OSS platforms and scanning tools.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.13064

Science Data Librarian at Middlebury College

Provide data curation services to students, faculty, and staff, and advocate for research data management best practices over the whole data lifecycle. As a library liaison, teaches information literacy skills, provides outreach, and builds on-going relationships with students, faculty, and staff, contributing knowledge and creativity to the library, the college, and the profession.

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