DigitalKoans – Page 49 – What Is the Sound of One E-Print Downloading?

"Guest Post — Accessibility Powered by AI: How Artificial Intelligence Can Help Universalize Access to Digital Content"

More than 1 billion people around the world have some type of disability (including visual, hearing, cognitive, learning, mobility, and other disabilities) that affects how they access digital content. No wonder we spend so much time talking about accessibility tools!

Digital transformation can revolutionize the world, turning it into an inclusive place for people with and without disabilities, with accessibility powered by artificial intelligence. This post provides an overview of how AI can improve accessibility in different ways, illustrated with real-world applications and examples.

https://tinyurl.com/3s64tvm7

Senior Software Engineer – Backend at Harvard University

The Harvard Library Innovation Lab (LIL) is looking for a Senior Software Engineer specializing in data engineering and backend development to help us imagine and build innovative software that charts the future of libraries. Our ideal candidate would be excited to build data pipelines and tools that help the world create, preserve, and access knowledge. . . .Our work is open-source and openly available, with an eye to broad public interest impact.

https://tinyurl.com/mr2krpnw

Replayed: Essential Writings on Software Preservation and Game Histories

Since the early 2000s, Henry Lowood has led or had a key role in numerous initiatives devoted to the preservation and documentation of virtual worlds, digital games, and interactive simulations, establishing himself as a major scholar in the field of game studies. . . . Replayed consolidates Lowood’s far-flung and significant publications on these subjects into a single volume.

https://www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/12805/replayed

Geographic Information Systems Specialist at Ball State University

You will have a major impact on students and faculty, leading support for complex GIS solutions used by over 100 students daily and over 2,200 students and faculty annually, from over 23 academic departments and programs. This position manages Ball State’s ESRI ArcGIS and Hexagon ERDAS solution licenses and software, and significant GIS datasets. The Libraries’ GIS support is very robust and includes StoryMaps and datasets.

https://bsu.peopleadmin.com/postings/37431

"Global Trends in Digital Preservation: Outsourcing versus In-House Practices"

This study aimed at investigating the trends toward digital preservation in terms of in-house activities versus outsourcing by systematically reviewing the extant literature. . . . . The meta-analysis of the final studies affirms a strong global preference of libraries, archives, and other cultural and memory organizations toward in-house activities for the preservation of their digital objects and collections compared to outsourcing digital preservation activities by third parties.

https://doi.org/10.1177/09610006231173461

Systems and Discovery Librarian at Texas A&M University – Commerce

Reporting to the Associate Dean of Collections and Discovery, the Systems and Discovery Librarian is responsible for the oversight of library systems including Alma/Primo, Tipasa, OCLC, EZproxy, and Springshare products. The Systems and Discovery Librarian will contribute to larger projects within the Resource Acquisition and Discovery department aimed at enhancing a variety of essential library services.

https://tinyurl.com/mrybdp5u

"Can Open Access Increase LIS Research’s Policy Impact? Using Regression Analysis and Causal Inference"

The relationship between open access and academic impact (usually measured as citations received from academic publications) has been extensively studied but remains a very controversial topic. However, the effect of open access on policy impact (measured as citations received from policy documents) is still unknown. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of open access on the policy impact, which might initiate a new controversial topic. . . . Linear regression models, logit regression models, four other matching methods, open access status provided by different databases, and different sizes of data samples were used to check the robustness of the main results. This study revealed that open access had significant and positive effects on the policy impact.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-023-04750-1

Digital Publishing Specialist at Carnegie Mellon University

Carnegie Mellon University Libraries are seeking a visionary and technically skilled Digital Publishing Specialist to help shape the future of scholarly communication and build a vibrant publishing program at the heart of our library. . . . You will contribute to the department by providing vital support by crafting and launching a diverse publishing portfolio, including online journals, blogs, galleries, websites, podcasts, project portfolios, and other interactive media.

https://tinyurl.com/3twjaukv

"Mastodon over Mammon — Towards Publicly Owned Scholarly Knowledge"

Twitter is in turmoil and the scholarly community on the platform is once again starting to migrate. As with the early internet, scholarly organizations are at the forefront of developing and implementing a decentralized alternative to Twitter, Mastodon. Both historically and conceptually, this is not a new situation for the scholarly community. Historically, scholars were forced to leave social media platform FriendFeed after it was bought by Facebook in 2006. Conceptually, the problems associated with public scholarly discourse subjected to the whims of corporate owners are not unlike those of scholarly journals owned by monopolistic corporations: in both cases the perils associated with a public good in private hands are palpable. For both short form (Twitter/Mastodon) and longer form (journals) scholarly discourse, decentralized solutions exist, some of which are already enjoying some institutional support. Here we argue that scholarly organizations, in particular learned societies, are now facing a golden opportunity to rethink their hesitations towards such alternatives and support the migration of the scholarly community from Twitter to Mastodon by hosting Mastodon instances. Demonstrating that the scholarly community is capable of creating a truly public square for scholarly discourse, impervious to private takeover, might renew confidence and inspire the community to focus on analogous solutions for the remaining scholarly record — encompassing text, data and code — to safeguard all publicly owned scholarly knowledge.

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7643817

Data Engineer at Northeastern University

The Digital Scholarship Group (DSG) in the Northeastern University Library is excited to open a search for a Data Engineer. Working within a warm and collaborative environment dedicated to social justice, the Data Engineer gathers, organizes, manipulates, transforms, and documents a variety of humanities research data.

https://tinyurl.com/5n8up24a

"AI Is about to Turn Book Publishing Upside-down"

The latest generation of AI is a game changer. Not incremental change—something gentle, something gradual: this AI changes everything, fast. Scary fast.

I believe that every function in trade book publishing today can be automated with the help of generative AI. And, if this is true, then the trade book publishing industry as we know it will soon be obsolete. We will need to move on.

https://tinyurl.com/2p9z6pr6

Digital Archivist and Librarian at St. Olaf College

Design and manage digital collections by establishing the metadata schema and controlled vocabularies, and by exercising quality control of the software, equipment and metadata records.

Create policies and procedures for managing born-digital materials for ingest, storage, preservation, organization, description, and access in accordance with accepted standards and practices to ensure the long-term preservation of collections. . .

Lead the efforts in computer expertise in digitization, including hardware/software for digital preservation, web archiving, cataloging, public delivery, and preservation.

https://bit.ly/3MKo1IS

"Reference Rot in the Digital Humanities Literature: An Analysis of Citations Containing Website Links in DHQ"

Link rot is likely most familiar in the form of "404 Not Found" error messages, but there are other less prominent obstacles to accessing web content. Our study examines instances of link rot in Digital Humanities Quarterly articles and its impact on the ability to access the online content referenced in these articles after their publication. . . .

Our data shows that a significant number of works cited no longer exist, are inaccessible, or have additional barriers to access. Instances of link rot increase with time. Additionally, there is a higher frequency and higher proportion of links contained in DHQ articles, showing that internet resources are a critical part of the DH literature. Taken together, the combined result is a persistent and cumulative threat to the integrity and stability of the DH literature, and one that is even more alarming when compared to other disciplines.

https://bit.ly/42iZq3t

Research Data Manager at Edge Hill University

In this post you will lead on advising researchers on the most appropriate ways to manage and disseminate their datasets. . . .You will also establish, develop, and maintain a research data service, providing leadership which will inform university policies and determine internal workflows. This will involve imparting current knowledge and leading the University research community as we commit to open research.

https://bit.ly/42hCDoO

"Integrating Preservation into Librarian Workflows"

The core mission of libraries is to ensure perpetual access to the record of knowledge. As a review of the NASIG webinar (formerly North American Serials Interest Group), "Integrating Preservation into Librarian Workflows," by Jill Emery and Sunshine Carter, this article examines working models constructed to sustain perpetual access for their institutional communities. In reflecting on these data-intensive practices, both presenters now recognize that previously impactful collection development business decisions were being made in the dark. Reviewing the webinar also reveals that this issue of preservation access has two critically distinct aspects, which should not be conflated as interchangeable. One is concerned with long-term preservation and the other addresses a library’s ability to provide post-cancellation access to its user community, given budgetary or physical space constraints. The following is an analysis of how effective the processes explored in the webinar are in addressing both post-cancellation access and long-term perpetual access goals. Based on a 2018 NASIG survey, results indicated that many organizations in scholarly communications lacked preservation policies. In June 2022, as a result of the survey, NASIG released the model digital preservation policy as a template to guide consequential and explicit decision-making by addressing issues including scope, roles, responsibilities, tools and techniques. These policy issues are important for librarians to understand before negotiating content licenses, in sustaining long-term discovery and access, and when developing collaborative access frameworks to address collection development and maintenance challenges.

https://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.614

Associate Dean for Collections and Open Initiatives at University of Arkansas

The Associate Dean for Collections and Open Initiatives leads the University of Arkansas Libraries’ people and programs supporting creation, evaluation, acquisition, description, digitization, and preservation of content and collections.. . . Collection development efforts are shared between Collections and Open Initiatives; Research and Learning; and Special Collections divisions. The portfolio of responsibilities includes oversight for collection development, acquisitions, metadata, digital services, scholarly communication, data services, open education services, and preservation.

https://bit.ly/3OR2b9d

"Beyond BPCs: Reimagining and Re-infrastructuring the Funding of Open Access Books"

A major issue is that the sheer cost of BPCs [Book Processing Charges] makes them an extremely expensive way of funding Open Access books. For large commercial publishers, BPCs of £11,000 and more for a conventional academic book are typical. Given very few academics would themselves have the capacity to easily cover these kinds of costs, BPCs are usually paid by universities or funders — sometimes from a specific fund set aside to cover the costs of Open Access publishing, sometimes from a general unallocated part of a university/department budget, sometimes from the budget of a research grant.

As Open Book Collective colleagues have argued again and again, in line with the aims and mission of the COPIM project, as well as arguments made by other project colleagues, a BPC-based Open Access publishing model is fundamentally unsustainable and unscalable. Any requirement for the higher education sector to pay BPCs on a broadscale basis would require an unparalleled national and global injection of funding. . . .

The Open Book Collective’s online presence " its "platform" serves many functions, including providing information about our aims, governance, model and values, as well resources about Open Access. However, a key part of the platform is the area where publishers and publishing "service providers," as we call them (the organisations that provide the crucial infrastructures for Open Access book publishing) make available ‘Offers’ that universities and other organisations can potentially subscribe to. . . .

In the Open Book Collective model, we give publisher/service provider members substantial — but not total — control over how their individual Offers are priced. Each initiative proposes a "tiered" costing Offer to us (tiered pricing involves varying subscription prices by university’s size and/or national context), which we assess to determine whether it is fair and reasonable. If so, and our Membership Committee agrees that the initiative meets our broader membership criteria, then it is eligible to become a member of the Open Book Collective, with its Offer potentially hosted on our platform.

https://bit.ly/45yZsXQ

Digital Archivist at Mercer University

This position contributes to the success of the Tarver Library by providing digital access to primary research materials and other items in the archives, assisting the University Archivist in project management, and working with colleagues from Mercer and the broader community. Archives, Special Collections, and Digital Initiatives preserves and makes available a vast collection of historical materials on the history of Mercer University and Georgia Baptists.

https://bit.ly/3MM8mJb

Paywall: "Interoperability of Open Science Metadata: What About the Reality?"

This paper leads to identify complementary ways to improve dataset interoperability: (1) to adapt mapping algorithms to the issues raised by metadata schema matching; (2) to adapt metadata schemata, for instance by sharing a core vocabulary and/or reusing existing standards; (3) to combine various trends in a more complex interoperability approach that would also make available and operational the (RDA) crosswalks between schemata and that would promote good practices in metadata labeling and documentation.

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-33080-3_28

Research Information Management Librarian at Seton Hall University

Reporting to the Assistant Dean for Information Technology and Collection Services, the Research Information Management Librarian performs a variety of work with library faculty and staff, faculty departments, and campus partners to develop and implement research information management software, assist with the institutional repository and faculty metrics.

https://bit.ly/3WFF5Ev”>https://bit.ly/3CbjZUN

A Guide for Social Science Journal Editors on Easing into Open Science (FULL GUIDE)

Journal editors have a large amount of power to advance open science in their respective fields by incentivising and mandating open policies and practices at their journals. The Data PASS Journal Editors Discussion Interface (JEDI, an online community for social science journal editors: www.dpjedi.org) has collated several resources on open science in journal editing (www.dpjedi.org/resources). However, it can be overwhelming as a new editor to know where to start. For this reason, we have created a guide for journal editors on how to get started with open science. The guide outlines steps that editors can take to implement open policies and practices at their journal, and goes through the what, why, how, and worries of each policy/practice.

https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/hstcx

Open Education Librarian at University of Arkansas

As a member of the Open Education, Data, and Publishing Services unit, the Open Education Librarian will spearhead library-wide efforts to lower student costs by advancing the adoption, adaptation, and creation of Open Educational Resources (OERs) by the University of Arkansas faculty. The Open Education Librarian will guide faculty in the discovery, identification, adoption, creation, dissemination, and assessment of high quality open and affordable course content which also supports inclusivity and accessibility. They will develop methods, metrics, and documentation for assessing institutional OER use and knowledge and the value of open content.

https://bit.ly/45EgbJm

"Wiley Inks 22 Open Access Agreements across North America"

These agreements, which all begin in 2023, span individual universities, research labs, and academic consortia across 18 U.S. states and Mexico. They allow participating institutions access to all of Wiley’s hybrid and subscription journals and grant researchers the ability to publish accepted articles open access across Wiley’s extensive publishing portfolio. . . .

A full list of participating partners includes:

Individual Institutions: University of Alabama at Birmingham, Brandeis University, Carnegie Mellon University, Colorado State University, Montana State University, Princeton University, Southern Methodist University, Syracuse University, UMass Lowell, West Virginia University, Texas Tech University Health Services Center, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Portland State University, Northeastern University, Texas A&M University, Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados del IPN (CINVESTAV), University of North Texas Health Science Center, Washington State University, and Texas Christian University.

Consortia: The Carolina Consortium, and the Statewide California Electronic Library Consortium (SCELC).

https://bit.ly/3ORnyqT

Digital Scholarship Librarian at Fairfield University

Provides leadership in the development, implementation, promotion, and assessment of digital scholarly initiatives. Participates in the Library’s Faculty Partnership program. Participates in the Library’s instruction program. Provides research support.

https://cutt.ly/XwqCGCcP

"Thirteen Ways of Looking at a License"

This column describes how one library seeks to mitigate harms or to optimize protections and advantages resulting from journal licenses. Progress toward improved licensing outcomes is described with examples or with qualitative data, from a comprehensive overview of one library’s journal licenses. Discussion includes so-called transformative agreements, a variety of rights, non-disclosure and data privacy clauses, term and termination, and transfer obligations.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2023.102737