DigitalKoans – Page 22 – What Is the Sound of One E-Print Downloading?

Engineering Librarian for Data and Collections at Stanford University

As a member of an interdisciplinary team of science and engineering librarians in the Science and Engineering Resource Group (SERG), the Data and Collections Librarian is responsible for assessing, acquiring, and managing collections for the Engineering Library to support research and instruction in a highly interdisciplinary environment. This position will also work with researchers to identify, curate, manage, and make accessible data that is relevant to engineering research in all its stages.

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International Scientific Report on the Safety of Advanced AI

The interim report highlights several key takeaways, including:

General-purpose AI can be used to advance the public interest, leading to enhanced wellbeing, prosperity, and scientific discoveries.

According to many metrics, the capabilities of general-purpose AI are advancing rapidly. Whether there has been significant progress on fundamental challenges such as causal reasoning is debated among researchers.

Experts disagree on the expected pace of future progress of general-purpose AI capabilities, variously supporting the possibility of slow, rapid, or extremely rapid progress.

There is limited understanding of the capabilities and inner workings of general-purpose AI systems. Improving our understanding should be a priority.

Like all powerful technologies, current and future general-purpose AI can be used to cause harm. For example, malicious actors can use AI for large-scale disinformation and influence operations, fraud, and scams.

Malfunctioning general-purpose AI can also cause harm, for instance through biassed decisions with respect to protected characteristics like race, gender, culture, age, and disability.

Future advances in general-purpose AI could pose systemic risks, including labour market disruption, and economic power inequalities. Experts have different views on the risk of humanity losing control over AI in a way that could result in catastrophic outcomes.

Several technical methods (including benchmarking, red-teaming and auditing training data) can help to mitigate risks, though all current methods have limitations, and improvements are required.

The future of AI is uncertain, with a wide range of scenarios appearing possible. The decisions of societies and governments will significantly impact its future.

Report

https://tinyurl.com/3h7bdvzr

"WIPO Study: Research4Life Program Spikes Research Output by up to 75% in Low- and Middle-Income Countries"

A new study conducted by leading researchers from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the University of the Bundeswehr Munich and the German Economic Institute reveals that free or low-cost online access to scientific publications — as provided by Research4Life programs — results in a surge in scientific output, particularly in health sciences, by up to 75% in low- and middle-income countries. . . .

Research institutions in the Caribbean, Central Asia, Europe, and Latin America saw their academic paper output increase by 80-100%. In terms of clinical trials, program participation was most impactful for East Asia, the Pacific, the Middle East, and North Africa, with trial activity rising by up to 35%.

Report

https://tinyurl.com/vjpfub7u

Web Developer I at The University of Alabama

The Web Developer I writes and maintains standard front-end and back-end code that supports websites and web applications. Applies specialized knowledge of web code standards and frameworks to produce complex, dynamic websites and applications that meet standards required by University and governmental policy.

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Developer and Systems Administrator at Colorado State University

The Developer and Systems Administrator will join others in the same role to enhance and create innovative systems and technology solutions for CSU Libraries. This role combines traditional software development and systems administration work to develop and manage applications, administer virtual servers and storage, create integrations with external data sources, and manage the Libraries’ web presence. The person in this role is encouraged to collaborate with colleagues across the Libraries, the university, and the field by leading projects, taking advantage of professional development opportunities and participating in Library wide task forces. CSU Libraries supports flexible work including in-person, hybrid and/or fully remote options for this position.

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"Librarian Faculty Status: Exploring Inequality Regimes in a Comparative Case Study"

Faculty status for librarians is one of the most debated topics within academic librarianship (Bailey & Becher, 2022). Professional associations argue that faculty status benefits librarians, but little empirical work has explored how faculty status plays out in real-world settings (Galbraith, Garrison, & Hales, 2016). This study investigates whether faculty status helps librarians overcome barriers using a comparative case study of two academic libraries representing polarity on this issue. One library offers librarians tenure-track faculty appointments; the other classifies librarians as staff. Through qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews, the study explores administrative obstacles faced by librarians and whether faculty status ameliorates them. This study also examines if debates over librarian faculty status ignore inequality regimes (Acker, 2006) that may appear in both faculty and staff settings. Surprisingly, findings reveal faculty status is associated with more workplace hierarchies and stress, especially for female librarians. Contrary to claims made by faculty status proponents, most librarians feel equally undervalued by disciplinary faculty regardless of status. Ultimately, blanket recommendations for faculty status seem ineffective, and nuanced solutions tailored to local contexts better serve librarians. This study encourages an honest dialogue to empower librarians based on individual needs, not rigid assumptions.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2024.102887

Pew Research Center: When Online Content Disappears

A quarter of all webpages that existed at one point between 2013 and 2023 are no longer accessible, as of October 2023. In most cases, this is because an individual page was deleted or removed on an otherwise functional website.

For older content, this trend is even starker. Some 38% of webpages that existed in 2013 are not available today, compared with 8% of pages that existed in 2023. . . .

Nearly one-in-five tweets are no longer publicly visible on the site just months after being posted.

https://tinyurl.com/bdh4c6xh

Digital Services Librarian at Loyola University Chicago

Reporting to the Head of Library Systems, the Digital Services Librarian has primary responsibility for overseeing the University Libraries digital services, including the library’s web presence, library management and discovery systems, institutional repository, and other evolving digital services platforms. This position leads support for digital scholarship and open access initiatives; it also provides technical support for digital special collections, electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs), and other born-digital and retrospectively digitized materials. This position also works closely with electronic resources librarians to support access to online databases and full-text journals.

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"The Road to Sustainability: Examining Key Drivers in Open Access Diamond Journal Publishing"

Despite the rising interest in open access (OA) diamond journals as a scholarly journal publishing model, their sustainability remains a pressing concern. Using the Open Access Diamond Journals Study (OADJS) Dataset, we examined the characteristics and factors of OA diamond journal publishing that are associated with high sustainability. From 1335 journals, 476 journals with low sustainability and 438 journals with high sustainability were selected and compared. Our analysis revealed that factors such as the region and official language of the publishing country and the discipline, ownership, and financial status of the journal were significantly associated with sustainability. Journals owned by government or national agencies, those with financial stability, and those promoting open practices like unrestricted text and data mining are more likely to be sustainable. This study also discusses the implications of these findings for the future of scholarly publishing and the open science movement. Ultimately, we emphasize the need for national and international support to enhance the sustainability of OA diamond journals and propose that a collective approach involving policymakers, funding agencies, and journal administrators is crucial for fostering a sustainable open access ecosystem.

https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1611

IT Support Professional I at NC State University Libraries

Reporting to the Technology Services Manager, this position supports the Apple and Windows computing environments with a focus on patron computing at the Libraries. The position works with the Technology Services team to support computing in all patron spaces, including the Learning Commons, Graduate Student Commons, and a variety of specialized spaces and services such as the Data Experience Lab, Dataspace, Digital Media Lab, Virtual Reality spaces, the NC State Gaming and Esports Lab, Makerspace, and Technology Lending Service.

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"Relationships between Expert Ratings of Business/Economics Journals and Key Citation Metrics: The Impact of Size-Independence, Citing-Journal Weighting, and Subject-Area Normalization"

This study uses data for >3300 business and economics journals to explore the relationships between 5 subjective (expert) journal ratings and 10 citation metrics including 5IF (5-year Impact Factor), Article Influence (AI) score, CiteScore, Eigenfactor, Impact per Publication, SJR, and SNIP. Overall, AI and SJR are the citation metrics most closely related to the expert journal ratings. . . . These results, which are consistent across the 5 expert ratings, suggest that evaluators consider the average impact of an article in each journal rather than the total impact of the journal as a whole, that they give more credit for citations in high-impact journals than for citations in lesser journals, and that they assess each journal’s relative standing within its own field or subfield rather than its broader scholarly impact.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2024.102882

Web and Digital Content Developer at University of South Florida University of South Florida

The Web and Digital Content Developer for the USF Health Libraries (USFHL) is responsible for all aspects of digital communication at the USFHL, including the website, digital signage, email announcements to our patrons, and social media. They will coordinate all USFHL patron digital content, applying technical and communication skills to maximize the value and functionality of the USFHL website and other digital platforms. They will also gather and evaluate website and library usage data to plan USFHL communication approaches, inform USFHL strategic planning, and report to national organizations for benchmarking.

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"Archie, the Internet’s First Search Engine, Is Rescued and Running"

Archie, first crafted by Alan Emtage while a student at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, allowed for the searching of various “anonymous” FTP servers around what was then a very small web of universities, researchers, and government and military nodes. . . .

Not only did The Serial Code rescue the last working version of Archie (seemingly a 3.5 beta), but they posted its docs and now run an actual Archie server on an emulated Sun SPARCstation 5. It’s currently indexing its own mirror

https://tinyurl.com/48stt2ht

Digital Media Specialist at Indiana University Bloomington

Assists in formulating project objectives and establishes digitization and workflow priorities in light of external timelines and Libraries strategic initiatives.

Trains and supervises hourly staff.

Serves as an expert consultant to faculty, archivists, librarians, staff, and external entities on digitization specifications, workflow, quality control, and material evaluation for digitization.

Serves as hardware and software administrator for Digitization Labs and develops digitization and quality control procedures for text, photographic, manuscript, and object materials.

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"MIT Press releases Direct to Open (D2O) Impact Report"

The MIT Press announces the release of a report on its Direct to Open (D2O) program detailing the impact that it has had in its first three years. Launched in 2021, D2O is a sustainable framework for open access monographs that shifts publishing from a solely market-based, purchase model where individuals and libraries buy single eBooks, to a collaborative, library-supported open access model. . . .

To date, D2O has funded 240 books: 159 in the Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS), and 81 in Science, Technology, Engineering, Art/Design, and Mathematics (STEAM). The data show that, on average, open access HSS books in the program are used 3.75 times more and receive 21% more citations than their paywalled counterparts. Open access books in STEAM fields are used 2.67 times more and receive 15% more citations than their non-open counterparts, on average. . . .

At a time when average print runs for academic monographs are often in the low hundreds, books in the D2O program are reaching larger audiences online than ever before—averaging 3,061 downloads per title and bringing important scholarship to international audiences.

https://tinyurl.com/4cwet48f

Electronic Resources & Collections Assessment Librarian at University of Missouri-Kansas City

This position involves a comprehensive approach to managing electronic resources, including assessment, setup, maintenance, user access and technology trends. Reporting to the Head of Collections and Acquisitions, the ERCA Librarian will ensure that the library’s electronic resources are effectively integrated, accessible, and aligned with the academic needs of the university.

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"Different Open Access Routes, Varying Societal Impacts: Evidence from the Royal Society Biological Journals"

In this article, we explore different OA routes (i.e., gold OA, hybrid OA, and bronze OA) and their varying effects on multiple types of societal impacts (i.e., social media and web) by using the case of four biological journals founded by the Royal Society. The results show that (1) gold OA is significantly and positively related to social media indicators (Twitter counts and Facebook counts), but significantly and negatively associated with web indicators (Blog counts and News counts); (2) hybrid OA has a significant and positive effect on both social media and web indicators; and (3) bronze OA is significantly and positively associated with social media indicators, but it turns to be negative albeit nonsignificant for web indicators.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-024-05032-0

Manager of Software Development at Washington University in St. Louis

The candidate will manage a team of approximately four people in developing, deploying, and maintaining a range of applications for library services, as well as integrating vendor applications to work for the library users. Current vendor applications include digital repositories, resource discovery layers, and systems that support daily library services.

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"Re-Use of Research Data in the Social Sciences. Use and Users of Digital Data Archive"

The aim of this paper is to investigate the re-use of research data deposited in digital data archive in the social sciences. The study examines the quantity, type, and purpose of data downloads by analyzing enriched user log data collected from Swiss data archive. The findings show that quantitative datasets are downloaded increasingly from the digital archive and that downloads focus heavily on a small share of the datasets. The most frequently downloaded datasets are survey datasets collected by research organizations offering possibilities for longitudinal studies. Users typically download only one dataset, but a group of heavy downloaders form a remarkable share of all downloads. The main user group downloading data from the archive are students who use the data in their studies. Furthermore, datasets downloaded for research purposes often, but not always, serve to be used in scholarly publications. Enriched log data from data archives offer an interesting macro level perspective on the use and users of the services and help understanding the increasing role of repositories in the social sciences. The study provides insights into the potential of collecting and using log data for studying and evaluating data archive use.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0303190

Manager, E-Resources Acquisitions at Yale University

Essential duties include: Oversees ordering of electronic content in Yale’s library management system and license tracking system. Supervises key e-resource life cycle processes including trial access, license management, and the collection of usage statistics for electronic resources; recommends and implements improvements to existing tools and workflows. Takes an active role in the library’s license review process. Collaborates on the optimization of information management and discovery systems and workflows; oversees data reporting and analysis to support operational work. Provides e-resource expertise both internally to library staff and externally to vendors and the larger Yale community.

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"Project Astra is the Future of AI at Google"

Google calls it Project Astra, and it’s a real-time, multimodal AI assistant that can see the world, knows what things are and where you left them, and can answer questions or help you do almost anything. In an incredibly impressive demo video that Hassabis swears is not faked or doctored in any way, an Astra user in Google’s London office asks the system to identify a part of a speaker, find their missing glasses, review code, and more. It all works practically in real time and in a very conversational way.

https://tinyurl.com/bkkfaxrd

Systems Librarian at Toronto Metropolitan University

The scope of responsibilities will include participation in collaborative initiatives, adept technical problem-solving, and the seamless integration of systems and technology to enhance customer service interactions and optimize staff workflows. As Alma System Administrator, this librarian will manage system configurations, review software updates, integrate other software platforms with the Library Services Platform (LSP) (currently Alma/Primo), and develop scripts or programs that automate tasks and enhance access and discovery.

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Open Access Projects in Europe: From a General Perspective to Monographs and Ebooks

The development of policies in favour of open science and the transformation of publication channels for academic literature and research produced with public funding by researchers and authors in higher education, combined with technological and financial developments in open access models for scholarly publication and the interest shown by funders for a long time in journals and articles and more recently in monographs and textbooks, continue to reshape the face of academic publication.

Cécile Swiatek Cassafieres, a member of the Executive Board of the Association of European Research Libraries (LIBEReurope.org), will provide a general overview of the main European trends, initiatives and projects in this area, focusing on the diamond model and its current prospects, before addressing the case of ‘books’ in open access, from the angle of monographs on the one hand, and textbooks on the other. A presentation of LIBER’s own initiatives will illustrate the Association of European Research Libraries’ support for such developments.

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11149567

Research Data Management Librarian at Louisiana State University

Reporting to the Director, Scholarly Publications & Analytics, the Research Data Management (RDM) Librarian supports researchers throughout the research data lifecycle to meet their planning, management, analysis, sharing, and archival needs. The RDM Librarian collaborates with peers in other library and campus-wide units to provide a suite of services related to the stewardship of findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable data.

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