This presentation was given at Bobcatsss2013 in Ankara.
Once the library assembled a collection and people came to the library to use it. Now, people build communication, workflows and behaviors around a variety of network resources. The library needs to think about how it is visible and relevant in those workflows and behaviors.
Shared advocacy through data-looking beyond the high cost of journalsJane Nichols
Academic libraries have a long history of advocating for additional funding for their collections. One strategy is to partner with a Faculty Senate Library Committee (FSLC) to take on the cause. In Spring 2011 OSU Libraries began this process by presenting our FSLC with a range of data they could use to tell our story to the Faculty Senate, campus administration, and other stakeholders. We will continue to work with them to advocate for our collections budget. As we explore these issues for our campus, larger questions come up. Which data best promotes libraries? What are additional strategies to pique campus stakeholders’ interest in a library's success? How can assessment data be used to strengthen our case for a better budget? Should libraries focus on our diminished purchasing power or our increased partnerships with faculty?
Collection directions - towards collective collectionslisld
How the emergence of new research and learning workflows in digital environments is affecting library collecting and collections. Several trends are reviewed. In the light of diversifying competing requirements, the need to manage down print and develop shared print responses is discussed.
Presentation to OCLC Asia Pacific Regional Council meeting. 13 Oct. 2014.
Preparing for Technological Changes within Academic LIbrariesRachel Vacek
A presentation given to the Oklahoma State University Library for their Library Futures Series. The presentation is about finding ideas for technology innovation, streamlining web content for reuse, preparing for mobile, and preparing for interacting with users in new ways.
Library collections and the emerging scholarly recordlisld
A high level review of collection trends followed by a summary of recent work on the evolving scholarly record.
Presented at the OCLC Research Library Partnership meeting at the University of Melbourne, 2 December 2015.
This presentation was given at Bobcatsss2013 in Ankara.
Once the library assembled a collection and people came to the library to use it. Now, people build communication, workflows and behaviors around a variety of network resources. The library needs to think about how it is visible and relevant in those workflows and behaviors.
Shared advocacy through data-looking beyond the high cost of journalsJane Nichols
Academic libraries have a long history of advocating for additional funding for their collections. One strategy is to partner with a Faculty Senate Library Committee (FSLC) to take on the cause. In Spring 2011 OSU Libraries began this process by presenting our FSLC with a range of data they could use to tell our story to the Faculty Senate, campus administration, and other stakeholders. We will continue to work with them to advocate for our collections budget. As we explore these issues for our campus, larger questions come up. Which data best promotes libraries? What are additional strategies to pique campus stakeholders’ interest in a library's success? How can assessment data be used to strengthen our case for a better budget? Should libraries focus on our diminished purchasing power or our increased partnerships with faculty?
Collection directions - towards collective collectionslisld
How the emergence of new research and learning workflows in digital environments is affecting library collecting and collections. Several trends are reviewed. In the light of diversifying competing requirements, the need to manage down print and develop shared print responses is discussed.
Presentation to OCLC Asia Pacific Regional Council meeting. 13 Oct. 2014.
Preparing for Technological Changes within Academic LIbrariesRachel Vacek
A presentation given to the Oklahoma State University Library for their Library Futures Series. The presentation is about finding ideas for technology innovation, streamlining web content for reuse, preparing for mobile, and preparing for interacting with users in new ways.
Library collections and the emerging scholarly recordlisld
A high level review of collection trends followed by a summary of recent work on the evolving scholarly record.
Presented at the OCLC Research Library Partnership meeting at the University of Melbourne, 2 December 2015.
Building and Managing Social Media CollectionsJason Casden
Presenters:
Laura Wrubel
Jason Casden
Presented at DLF Forum 2015 on October 27th, 2015.
As venues for discourse and creation, social media platforms such as Twitter and Instagram are important source material for scholarly research. Future access to social media data will allow researchers to develop historical assessments based on materials representing the voices of a large and diverse set of participants. Much of this critical and ephemeral content may be lost if cultural heritage institutions are not collecting and preserving it, yet creating and managing these collections presents challenges around collecting mechanisms, curation, legal and ethical issues, and preservation.
This workshop will include the following components:
• A review of technical tools for collecting and guidelines for selecting an approach that works best for your institution and users
• A guided discussion of ethical and legal considerations in taking on this work and parallels with established archival practices
• A review of some existing use cases of libraries' social media data collecting followed by a group discussion of possible community-specific use cases and needs for supporting services.
• A demonstration of possible archival collecting workflows using NCSU Libraries' Social Media Combine collecting system (which includes NCSU Libraries' lentil system for Instagram harvesting and George Washington University's Social Feed Manager for Twitter harvesting). Participants who wish to follow along with their own instance may install it ahead of time.
Participants will leave with an awareness of the major components of a new social media collecting program, including available tools, research use cases, ethical and legal considerations, supporting resources, as well as a better understanding of how to integrate social media into existing practices and workflows. There will be opportunities to share collecting ideas with each other at the end of the workshop.
Library discovery: past, present and some futureslisld
A presentation at the NISO virtual conference on Webscale Discovery Services, 20 November 2013.
Considers some of the issues that have led to the adoption of these services, and some future directions.
Distinguishes between discovery (providing a library destination) and discoverability (making stuff discoverable elsewhere).
Towards collaboration at scale: Libraries, the social and the technicallisld
Libraries are now supporting research and learning behaviors in data rich network environments. This presentation looks at some examples focusing on how an emphasis on individual systems needs to give way to a broader view of process, workflow and behaviors.
It also discusses how this environment creates a demand for collaboration at scale among libraries.
About the Webinar
In the six years from 2006 to 2012, the number of self-published books grew an astounding 270% to more than 235,000, almost as many as were published "traditionally." The easy access to publication tools and distribution mechanisms has ushered in a new era of how content is created and disseminated. No longer do authors need to work through a publisher to have their content accepted, processed, and distributed. The impacts of this revolution in publishing extend well beyond what used to be called "vanity publishing." A variety of best-selling books in recent years have come out from successful self-publishers sharing their tips on how others can follow in their footsteps.
How can publishers capitalize on this author independence? How do libraries incorporate self-published works into their acquisition processes? When there is no publisher reputation behind a title, how does a library or user separate the wheat from the chaff? This webinar will explore these issues and the impacts of the self-publishing movement on both publishers and libraries.
Agenda
Introduction
Todd Carpenter, Executive Director, NISO
When Authors Assume Their Own Risk
Laura Dawson, Product Manager for Identifiers, Bowker
Self-Publishing with Smashwords
Mark Coker, Founder, CEO and Chief Author Advocate, Smashwords
Helping Libraries Help Themselves: The Library Publishing Toolkit
Allison Brown, Editor & Production Manager, Milne Library, SUNY Geneseo
Speakers: Beth Ardner, Manager of Distributor Relations, Credo Reference; Deirdre Costello, Associate Platform Manager, Credo Reference
The age of librarians toiling away in dust and silence is long over - if it ever existed at all. Librarians are in touch with different groups almost constantly, and librarianship today requires some serious communication skills. Whether it's other librarians, administrators, users, publishers or vendors, librarians have to juggle several different vocabularies to make sure they're communicating as clearly as possible.
We'd like to draw on our sales, publishing, usability and web design experience to help build some guidelines and answer questions about communicating with some of these groups. This seminar will focus specifically on communicating with publishers, vendors and users, but we'd love to hear what you have to say about communication in libraries!
Building and Managing Social Media CollectionsJason Casden
Presenters:
Laura Wrubel
Jason Casden
Presented at DLF Forum 2015 on October 27th, 2015.
As venues for discourse and creation, social media platforms such as Twitter and Instagram are important source material for scholarly research. Future access to social media data will allow researchers to develop historical assessments based on materials representing the voices of a large and diverse set of participants. Much of this critical and ephemeral content may be lost if cultural heritage institutions are not collecting and preserving it, yet creating and managing these collections presents challenges around collecting mechanisms, curation, legal and ethical issues, and preservation.
This workshop will include the following components:
• A review of technical tools for collecting and guidelines for selecting an approach that works best for your institution and users
• A guided discussion of ethical and legal considerations in taking on this work and parallels with established archival practices
• A review of some existing use cases of libraries' social media data collecting followed by a group discussion of possible community-specific use cases and needs for supporting services.
• A demonstration of possible archival collecting workflows using NCSU Libraries' Social Media Combine collecting system (which includes NCSU Libraries' lentil system for Instagram harvesting and George Washington University's Social Feed Manager for Twitter harvesting). Participants who wish to follow along with their own instance may install it ahead of time.
Participants will leave with an awareness of the major components of a new social media collecting program, including available tools, research use cases, ethical and legal considerations, supporting resources, as well as a better understanding of how to integrate social media into existing practices and workflows. There will be opportunities to share collecting ideas with each other at the end of the workshop.
Library discovery: past, present and some futureslisld
A presentation at the NISO virtual conference on Webscale Discovery Services, 20 November 2013.
Considers some of the issues that have led to the adoption of these services, and some future directions.
Distinguishes between discovery (providing a library destination) and discoverability (making stuff discoverable elsewhere).
Towards collaboration at scale: Libraries, the social and the technicallisld
Libraries are now supporting research and learning behaviors in data rich network environments. This presentation looks at some examples focusing on how an emphasis on individual systems needs to give way to a broader view of process, workflow and behaviors.
It also discusses how this environment creates a demand for collaboration at scale among libraries.
About the Webinar
In the six years from 2006 to 2012, the number of self-published books grew an astounding 270% to more than 235,000, almost as many as were published "traditionally." The easy access to publication tools and distribution mechanisms has ushered in a new era of how content is created and disseminated. No longer do authors need to work through a publisher to have their content accepted, processed, and distributed. The impacts of this revolution in publishing extend well beyond what used to be called "vanity publishing." A variety of best-selling books in recent years have come out from successful self-publishers sharing their tips on how others can follow in their footsteps.
How can publishers capitalize on this author independence? How do libraries incorporate self-published works into their acquisition processes? When there is no publisher reputation behind a title, how does a library or user separate the wheat from the chaff? This webinar will explore these issues and the impacts of the self-publishing movement on both publishers and libraries.
Agenda
Introduction
Todd Carpenter, Executive Director, NISO
When Authors Assume Their Own Risk
Laura Dawson, Product Manager for Identifiers, Bowker
Self-Publishing with Smashwords
Mark Coker, Founder, CEO and Chief Author Advocate, Smashwords
Helping Libraries Help Themselves: The Library Publishing Toolkit
Allison Brown, Editor & Production Manager, Milne Library, SUNY Geneseo
Speakers: Beth Ardner, Manager of Distributor Relations, Credo Reference; Deirdre Costello, Associate Platform Manager, Credo Reference
The age of librarians toiling away in dust and silence is long over - if it ever existed at all. Librarians are in touch with different groups almost constantly, and librarianship today requires some serious communication skills. Whether it's other librarians, administrators, users, publishers or vendors, librarians have to juggle several different vocabularies to make sure they're communicating as clearly as possible.
We'd like to draw on our sales, publishing, usability and web design experience to help build some guidelines and answer questions about communicating with some of these groups. This seminar will focus specifically on communicating with publishers, vendors and users, but we'd love to hear what you have to say about communication in libraries!
This presentation was provided by Damon Zucca of Oxford University Press during the NISO Webinar, The Evolving Natures of Reference Work and Reference Product, held on Wednesday, February 7, 2018
Finding the annotation needs of the botanical community in a digital libraryWilliam Ulate
The Center for Biodiversity Informatics at the Missouri Botanical Garden and Saint Louis University are analyzing the web annotation needs of the botanical community to develop a prototype of how those needs may be met within a digital library platform. We want to assess the practicality of existing tools to satisfy the technical, economic, and operational needs of botanical users to annotate. This will inform on requisites, best practices, and further developments for a research project to integrate an annotation tool within a virtual library. We surveyed 14 members of 10 different institutions in the botanical and scientific communities. We included both, those who currently annotate online as well as those who have only annotated offline (e.g. print or analog), in order to better understand the functionality needed to encourage and support online annotation activities. The answers to this survey were analyzed in the context of an annotation tool in a digital library and a prioritized list of annotation needs for users of a botanical virtual library was produced, taking into account the minimal and recommended functionality required to comply with the users requirements. Preliminary results from the report of the in-depth user assessments of annotation needs in the specific domain of botanists are shared with the attendees. Advances in the definition of a prototype are also shown.
The Current State of E-Books in Academic Libraries: A North American PerspectiveMichael Levine-Clark
Levine-Clark, Michael, “The Current State of E-Books in Academic Libraries: A North American Perspective,” Invited. Emerging Trends in Digital Publishing and the Digital Library, National Taiwan University Library, Taipei, January 8, 2013.
學術圖書館之電子書現況
The Current State of eBooks in Academic Libraries
Professor Michael Levine-Clark, 美國丹佛大學圖書館學術交流與典藏服務部門主任
http://www.lib.ntu.edu.tw/events/2013_CALAB/
This presentation was provided by Lorraine Estelle of COUNTER, during the NISO Humanities Roundtable. This year's program was entitled "The Monograph in an Evolving Humanities Ecosystem," and was held on October 20, 2021.
In the last 10 years there has been much speculation about the role of e-books and e-book readers. This presentation looks at the impact of e-book readers on publishing and reading, the types of e-book readers, their advantages and disadvantages.
This presentation provides the fundamentals about open access as part of the broader open agenda and locating it within changing scholarly communication and new forms of research dissemination. Adds a developing country perspective.
For many libraries, an institutional repository is an online archive to collect, preserve, and make accessible the intellectual output of an institution. For a growing bloc, the goal is to go further, beyond knowledge preservation to knowledge creation. These libraries are using their repositories to provide faculty with a proven publishing option by facilitating the production and distribution of original content often too niche for traditional publishers.
How do metadata librarians sift the incoming metadata with these different goals in mind? How do they optimize content for discovery in a wide range of resources such as online catalogs, external research databases, and major search engines? For a library that is also providing publishing services, what additional steps are necessary?
As the provider of Digital Commons, a repository and publishing platform for over 350 institutions, bepress has first-hand experience with these topics, and our consultants advise regularly on best practices for collecting, publishing, distributing, and archiving content. This presentation is intended for library professionals, whether their goal is to collect previously published works or to go further into library-led publishing. After an overview of common sources and destinations for metadata, attendees will come away with a set of considerations for streamlining workflows and optimizing content for discovery and distribution in major venues.
Eli Windchy is the VP, Consulting Services at bepress which provides software and services to the scholarly community. She received a Master's in Archaeology from University of Virginia, taught organic gardening, and for the last ten years has also been getting dirty with the metadata of Digital Commons repositories. She co-directs courses in institutional repository management and publishing, and she enjoys addressing the challenges of interoperability and scholarly communication.
So What is the Real Impact of Web 2.0 on Researcher Workflow? ALISS
So What is the Real Impact of Web 2.0 on Researcher Workflow?
Anna Drabble Head of Digital & Product Development, Emerald.
This paper presents the findings of new research conducted by Emerald and UCL and other partners.
Iatefl 2019 How to be successful in discovering and publishing researchCaroline Moore
About me as a researcher/ research publisher
Types of Scholarly publishing
How researchers find content
Finding ELT-related content
New trends and research tools
Publishing your own research
Building a Collaboration for Digital PublishingHarriett Green
Presentation for the "New Collaborations in Digital Publishing" panel at the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) 2015 meeting.
Paper presentation at the 2013 DLF Forum, "Building the Archive of Digital Humanities Research: Libraries and Data Curation of Digital Humanities Projects."
Humanities Users in the Digital Age: Library Needs AssessmentHarriett Green
Presentation given at the NFAIS Humanities Roundtable XII for the panel “Is It Marketing to Users, Instruction for Users or Interfering with Users?: Engaging Students, Scholars and Faculty Members”
Operation “Blue Star” is the only event in the history of Independent India where the state went into war with its own people. Even after about 40 years it is not clear if it was culmination of states anger over people of the region, a political game of power or start of dictatorial chapter in the democratic setup.
The people of Punjab felt alienated from main stream due to denial of their just demands during a long democratic struggle since independence. As it happen all over the word, it led to militant struggle with great loss of lives of military, police and civilian personnel. Killing of Indira Gandhi and massacre of innocent Sikhs in Delhi and other India cities was also associated with this movement.
Introduction to AI for Nonprofits with Tapp NetworkTechSoup
Dive into the world of AI! Experts Jon Hill and Tareq Monaur will guide you through AI's role in enhancing nonprofit websites and basic marketing strategies, making it easy to understand and apply.
2024.06.01 Introducing a competency framework for languag learning materials ...Sandy Millin
http://sandymillin.wordpress.com/iateflwebinar2024
Published classroom materials form the basis of syllabuses, drive teacher professional development, and have a potentially huge influence on learners, teachers and education systems. All teachers also create their own materials, whether a few sentences on a blackboard, a highly-structured fully-realised online course, or anything in between. Despite this, the knowledge and skills needed to create effective language learning materials are rarely part of teacher training, and are mostly learnt by trial and error.
Knowledge and skills frameworks, generally called competency frameworks, for ELT teachers, trainers and managers have existed for a few years now. However, until I created one for my MA dissertation, there wasn’t one drawing together what we need to know and do to be able to effectively produce language learning materials.
This webinar will introduce you to my framework, highlighting the key competencies I identified from my research. It will also show how anybody involved in language teaching (any language, not just English!), teacher training, managing schools or developing language learning materials can benefit from using the framework.
Welcome to TechSoup New Member Orientation and Q&A (May 2024).pdfTechSoup
In this webinar you will learn how your organization can access TechSoup's wide variety of product discount and donation programs. From hardware to software, we'll give you a tour of the tools available to help your nonprofit with productivity, collaboration, financial management, donor tracking, security, and more.
Instructions for Submissions thorugh G- Classroom.pptxJheel Barad
This presentation provides a briefing on how to upload submissions and documents in Google Classroom. It was prepared as part of an orientation for new Sainik School in-service teacher trainees. As a training officer, my goal is to ensure that you are comfortable and proficient with this essential tool for managing assignments and fostering student engagement.
Synthetic Fiber Construction in lab .pptxPavel ( NSTU)
Synthetic fiber production is a fascinating and complex field that blends chemistry, engineering, and environmental science. By understanding these aspects, students can gain a comprehensive view of synthetic fiber production, its impact on society and the environment, and the potential for future innovations. Synthetic fibers play a crucial role in modern society, impacting various aspects of daily life, industry, and the environment. ynthetic fibers are integral to modern life, offering a range of benefits from cost-effectiveness and versatility to innovative applications and performance characteristics. While they pose environmental challenges, ongoing research and development aim to create more sustainable and eco-friendly alternatives. Understanding the importance of synthetic fibers helps in appreciating their role in the economy, industry, and daily life, while also emphasizing the need for sustainable practices and innovation.
Read| The latest issue of The Challenger is here! We are thrilled to announce that our school paper has qualified for the NATIONAL SCHOOLS PRESS CONFERENCE (NSPC) 2024. Thank you for your unwavering support and trust. Dive into the stories that made us stand out!
1. Collaborative Economies: Tools
and Strategies for Scholars and
Libraries
Harriett Green, English and Digital Humanities Librarian
MLA 2012, Learned Journals and Libraries panel
2. State of Libraries and Journals Today
• EBSCO Information Services 2011 survey of libraries:
35% had budget cuts in 2011, 44% had FY12 cuts
• 2011 Library Journal periodicals survey: 2012 prices for
general periodicals will increase 5-7%, academic titles
will increase by 7-9%
• Libraries reduce print and expand electronic (Griffin
and Foret, 2011; Tyler and Pytlik Zillig, 2009)
• Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition
(SPARC) 2011 inventory: 530 scholarly societies
publishing 616 Open Access journals
2
3. Literatures and Languages Library
• English Library + Modern Languages and
Linguistics Library = Literatures and Languages
• English Periodicals Room: 285 current
journals, 109 journals in bound back issues
• Modern Languages and Linguistics Periodicals
Room: 450 current journals
• Weeding evaluation process: Online
access, on-site usage, faculty input
3
4. Literatures and Languages Journals
User Assessment
• Distributed in fall 2011 to University of
Illinois’s Department of English faculty
• Multiple-choice and text entry survey on
usage of the Library’s journals collection and
general use of periodicals in scholarship
• View survey at:
https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/green19/journals_su
rvey_MLA.docx
4
5. How They Accessed Journals
Databases in Online Research Resources
(www.library.illinois.edu/orr)
Online Library Catalog
Easy Search on the Library Gateway website
(www.library.illinois.edu)
Google
Archived English Library website Series1
Literatures and Languages Library website
Archived Modern Languages and Linguistics Library website
Other
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
Number of respondents
5
6. Print Journals
• “Print journals are most helpful to me in deciding how I
want articles I am preparing for publication to look.
Although sample articles can be found online, I find it
useful to see the print version as well to get a feel for my
intended journal.”
• “They are better for browsing, and we are more likely to
come across journals we don't already know. That is good
for graduate students too, since they have to learn the
journals in the field/s.”
• “Print journals are useful in providing a sense of what's
going on in a particular area currently. Although this can
also be accomplished online, I find it easier, more
convenient and more aesthetically pleasing in print.”
6
7. E-journals
• “These are easily and quickly accessible from any computer, but
they suffer since print journals maintain anywhere from a 2 to 5
year lag between original publication and digitization.”
• “These provide quick access to articles which I know the title or
author. I find search features to yield somewhat incomplete and
inconsistent results.”
• “Can get them any time. Can get them instantly. Can store the
articles easily on my computer. Sometimes they are searchable. As
an author I like them because I assume that they get more readers.
Students are more likely to use them (though also more likely to
abuse them as well, just because they are sometimes inexperienced
with how to use journals).”
7
8. E-Journals vs. Print Use
Only print journals
“I've found many special
Mostly print journals editions on a topic by
finding one article
Equally print journals
and electronic journals through search and then
Mostly electronic tracking it down in print.
journals It allows one to see
Only electronic journals trends in topics across
issues, years, and
Other
journals in a much
different way than some
types of online access.”
8
9. Importance of Journals
• “The notion that journals would
Importance of Journals
be declining in importance to
Significant increase in
importance
scholarly work just doesn't
apply to the humanities, at all. I
Some increase in importance
realize in Computer Science, for
No noticeable change example, journals may not have
Some decrease in importance
Series1 as much weight as
conferences, but for the
Significant decrease in
importance
Humanities, they are vital.”
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 • “Publishers are publishing
Number of respondents fewer edited collections; many
collections that would have
appeared as books are now
appearing as special issues of
journals.”
9
10. Improvements in Library Services
• “Lists of journals by subfields (plus general English/lit
journals), especially for graduate students who often don't
know the journals in their field.”
• “Improvement of database and catalog searches.”
• “Have at least the last ten years of any given journal on
hand in the reading room for easy access. Then make sure
there is a working copier so that the scholars can copy
whatever article interests them for further study.”
• “Quicker access to e-journals”
• “I think the Library is generally good in this area; the
important thing is to maintain access to older journals
while adding access to newer journals.”
10
11. Improvements for Journal Publishers
• “Perhaps have more reading options than just
plain HTML or the PDFs that look like print pages-
-some options on font sizes, clear demarcation of
page numbers etc.”
• “Journals seem to fail to realize how they are
used, in terms of ease of searching for articles.”
• “They could dispose of the lag between print
publication and digitization.”
• “Finding ways to increase circulation.”
11
12. Themes of Survey
• Access: Flexible and content-rich for scholarly
communications, research, and teaching
• “Looking in journals and reading the articles in them is
the first step in any serious scholarship done in the
humanities. Without access to journals--easy access--
scholars everywhere would constantly reinvent the
wheel unaware that their peers at other institutions
had already made the same conclusions.” - Survey
• Brockman, Neumann, et al., Scholarly Work in the
Humanities and the Evolving Information Environment
(2001)
12
13. Solutions: Library-Based
• Literatures and Languages Library Journals
database: links to catalog
• University of Virginia’s Claude Moore Health
Sciences Library: Enhanced web index
• University of Wisconsin Ebling Library journals
database: full text links, article abstracts, and RSS
feeds
• Stanford University Lane Medical Library journal
database: Impact Factors statistics
13
14. TicTOCs
http://www.tictocs.ac.uk
• Developed by consortium of libraries
(University of Liverpool), journal publishers
(DOAJ, SAGE, ProQuest, Emerald), and
research institutes (Institute of Physics)
• Table of Contents RSS feeds from 14,508
journals collected from 731 publishers
14
15. Library Publishing
• 2007 Association of Research Libraries survey of
80 academic libraries:
– 43 percent of libraries offered publishing services
– 21 percent were developing services
– Of the publishing services, 88 percent published
journals
• Full publishing programs, i.e., University of
Michigan’s MPublishing
• Institutional repositories that host OA scholarly
journals, i.e., University of Illinois IDEALS
15
16. The Future?
• Cyber-infrastructure for the humanities:
American Council of Learned Societies, Our
Cultural Commonwealth report (2006)
• Voss and Proctor (2006): Virtual research
environments with libraries and publishers
• Michael Clarke, demise of print journals:
http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2011/12/0
7/the-costs-of-print/
16
17. Thank You!
Harriett E. Green
English and Digital Humanities Librarian
green19@illinois.edu
Twitter: @greenharr
17
Editor's Notes
In the past two decades, libraries and journal publishers have seen a transformation in how they provide content and scholarly services. Scholarly services are particularly of note, as today’s humanities researchers use both digital and analog materials for scholarly research, and require services that address their hybrid needs. Learned journals and libraries share a particular attunement to these needs, given their missions: As such, I’d like to discuss my recent needs assessment of scholars and journals, and from this, consider how libraries and learned journals can potentially collaborate.
To set the stage: Statistic after statistic—including the EBSCO Information Services 2011 survey and Library Journal 2011 Periodicals survey—attests that journal prices are rising, but library’s budgets are falling and their space is shrinking. These pressures in prices have forced libraries to find creative ways to control costs without decimating collections. A number of libraries, including my own, have reduced their library’s on-site holdings of print journals and expanded electronic access, a process documented studies by librarians at Tufts and Nebraska and something that William notes in his comments the fragmentation of library collections (Griffin and Foret 433-437; Tyler and PytlikZillig 18-19). An Ithaka S + R research report proposes a multi-institutional consortium that shares digitized files and one shared print collection (Schonfeld and Housewright 14-15). And then there is the Open Access Movement, led in part by the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC), who recently reported that their 2011 inventory lists 530 scholarly societies publishing 616 full OA journals (Suber 1).These are among the initiatives being implemented today to address libraries’ challenge to provide financially feasible access to journals research. In this vein, I’d like to discuss the case study of my library, the Literatures and Languages Library at the University of Illinois.
The Literatures and Languages Library was formed as a merger of two departmental libraries, the English Library and Modern Languages and Linguistics Library, in January 2011. Prior to the merger, each library had a separate, heavily curated periodicals room, each room containing several hundred journals in current issues and bound volumes. But the libraries’ on-site holdings of periodicals had to be reduced to fit within the parameters of a new Literatures and Languages Periodicals reading space that was the size of one of their reading rooms. Thus I launched a weeding—but not deaccessioning—process of the English periodicals collection. The evaluation process of what to keep on-site involved an assessment of online access, frequency of use, and informal input from faculty. And during the space remodeling for the new periodicals room, I did a small survey of faculty use of our journals in order to help us develop guidelines for the new periodicals collection and its related services.
A survey was conducted in fall 2011 with the University of Illinois’s Department of English faculty, due to my primary access to this community: It was distributed to approximately 55 faculty members and received 15 valid responses. The survey asked respondents to describe their usage of ourLibrary’s journals collection and also their general use of periodicals in research (survey text available at the posted URL).I’d like to highlight a few key parts of the study:
In answer to the question of how they accessed the Library’s journals, pluralities of respondents indicated they used the Library’s website, electronic databases and the online catalog.
Yet when they were asked to list the advantages and disadvantages of having an on-site journal collection, the respondents overwhelmingly cited the advantages of immediate accessibility and comprehensive browsing for trends in scholarly practices. As one respondent noted, “Print journals are useful in providing a sense of what's going on in a particular area currently. Although this can also be accomplished online, I find it easier, more convenient and more aesthetically pleasing in print.” Responses like this immediately revealed issues that consistently were raised throughout the survey: access to a broad scope of the scholarly literature, having a easily accessible conduit for scholarly communications and currency, and a tool for graduate training.
For electronic journals, the primary cited advantages were the accessibility in terms of speed, mobility in access, and targeted searching. But disadvantages included the lag between print and online access, and searchability.
And while the majority used mostly e-journals, e-journals and print are often used concurrently by researchers, as one faculty member explains in this quote they start with the online and then go to the print.These important types of use of both the print and electronic formats also may undergird the continuing strength of journals in the research workflow.
In answer to how the importance of journals had changed in their field, all respondents said that journals either maintained their importance or had increased in importance. Notably, a respondent commented, “Publishers are publishing fewer edited collections; many collections that would have appeared as books are now appearing as special issues of journals.” (A trend that Alan also notes.) This importance also means that users have definite opinions on improvements that can be made.
When asked how the library could improve their services, on-site collection access, comfortable reading spaces, and expanded online access were the leading suggestions. In sum, one respondent said, “the important thing is to maintain access to older journals while adding access to newer journals.” Libraries constantly negotiate these issues of access and content, and seek new and innovative ways to improve; but there are influential factors on users from the publishers as well.
A plurality of respondents commented on the format and search interfaces of journal databases, with comments such as “Journals seem to fail to realize how they are used, in terms of ease of searching for articles.” Several respondents, however, could not identify any improvements—meaning that perhaps they recognize the laudatory efforts done by editors like Alan. But overall, the responses revealed that there are complementary issues to address for libraries and journal publishers.
This initial data from this admittedly small survey begins to indicate that the major issue in today’s humanities scholarship with journals is access: access for scholarly communications, for contextualizing their scholarship, and for graduate training. But the ideal access must not only be efficient and easy, but also content-rich in order to browse broadly across journal issues and disciplines. This broad and interdisciplinary method of research validates the studies of humanities researchers, such as Brockman, Neumann, et al.’s 2001 study that documents how secondary sources such as journals are as important as primary sources in contextualizing the scholars’ work and facilitating scholarly communications (18-19). What then are ways that libraries and journals could work together to facilitate their research needs?
In response to this study, the Literatures and Languages Library is in the midst of developing a SQL database of its journals, with each record containing links to the catalog and full-text online when available. This is a relatively simple but more mobile and robust access tool. The print collection, however, likely will grow no larger: The former English Library saw a 19.1% drop in on-site visitors during its last year of existence, and while we have no consistent statistics of on-site use in the new Library yet, our limited confines and steady increase in e-resources use (the MLA International Bibliography database received 1.3 million searches in 2010) has led us to expand our electronic resources. But we will continue to gather feedback and assessment of journal use—I plan to expand this survey to the other languages departments served by our Library.There are also a number of tools and initiatives developed at other institutions that we will look to, such as enhanced journal indexes and databases developed by libraries at the University of Virginia, University of Wisconsin, and Stanford University’s Lane Medical Library (Ellero 226-228).
But there are rich possibilities for collaborations between publishers and libraries that can build upon existing services such as RSS feeds. A premier example of this is the research tool TicTOCs: TicTOCswas funded by JISC (the UK’s funding agency for technology and education) and developed by a consortium of British university libraries, research institutes, and international publishers of proprietary and open access journals. This innovative collaboration developed a usable tool that enables scholars to gather RSS feeds of table of contents from over 14,000 mostly humanities journals collected from 731 publishers. Tic TOCs does have its limitations, including only being able to ingest journals with existing RSS feeds (Wirth 232). But its simplicity, ease of use, and free access offers a strong prototype for a tool created collaboratively by libraries and journal publishers.
Collaborative publishing initiatives with academic libraries is another potential avenue Library publishing services today range from one journal to a full backlist of journals and books: In a 2007 survey by the Association of Research Libraries, 88 percent of library publishing services produced journals (Hahn 6). Many libraries support institutional repositories for open-access publishing of faculty and student work, such as University of Illinois’s IDEALS. Library publishing services do not mimic traditional publishing services, as they are primarily electronic and are folded within with a suite of scholarly services that embed the library in the center of the scholar’s research process (Hahn 7). Overall, this enables libraries to answer a demand for publishing services to address underserved disciplines, new methodologies, or inadequate dissemination, and there is potential for learned journals to collaborate in these publishing endeavors even more (in fact I believe some do already).
Looking farther to the future, one possibility I’d like to briefly mention are Virtual Research Environments, or VREs, which were actually discussed in yesterday’s Future of Higher Ed panel by the two scientists: Similar to the concept of cyber-infrastructure, VREs provide an online research environment that brings together tools for researchers’ needs (Voss and Proctor 176). VREs are primarily used now in e-science research for data management, but the American Council of Learned Societies’ 2006 Our Cultural Commonwealth report and other research argues that cyber-infrastructure and VREs will become critical for humanities scholarship, and libraries and publishers will play important roles (187).Now Michael Clarke wrote last month on The Scholarly Kitchen, the blog for the Society of Scholarly Publishing, arguing for the inevitable demise of print journals in five years –
But I believe the challenge for libraries and journal publishers today is to balance the needs of scholarly users with efficiency in access and content, and the future of scholarly publishing may lie in combining the analog and digital to produce rich possibilities. As such, collaborative efforts between libraries, learned journals, and scholarly users may be the most fruitful path to achieving those possibilities.Thank you for your time!