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Portico and Ithaka Digital Preservation Survey of U.S. Library Directors – Results Released
Friday, 27 June 2008 2:46:43 p.m.
In September 2005, library directors from 17 universities and colleges met to discuss the current state of electronic journal preservation and endorsed a statement calling for “Urgent Action” to preserve scholarly e-journals. Over two years later in January 2008, in the Portico and Ithaka invited 1,371 library directors of four-year colleges and universities in the United States to respond to a survey examining current perspectives on preservation of e-journals. A strong response has yielded interesting findings that we now share with the community in the hope they will spark useful discussion among library directors, funders, and administrators regarding strategic library priorities.
Go to Source: http://www.portico.org/comment/
The Need to Formalize Trust Relationships
Friday, 27 June 2008 2:41:47 p.m.
Fran Berman, Ardys Kozbial, Robert H. McDonald, and
Brian E. C. Shottlaender
Many disparate groups—data managers, university administrators, computer scientists, technology educators, and librarians—are concerned about the deluge of digital data brought about by the Information Age. And well they might be. An EMC-sponsored research team from International Data Corporation (IDC) posits that 281 exabytes (281 billion gigabytes) of digital information existed in the world in 2007 and that by 2011, the aggregate amount of digital data will be 1.8 zettabytes (1,800 exabytes).1
Go to Source http://connect.educause.edu/Library/EDUCAUSE+Review/TheNeedtoFormalizeTrustRe/46608
The Seamless Cyberinfrastructure: The Challenges of Studying Users of Mass Digitization and Institutional Repositories
Friday, 27 June 2008 2:38:36 p.m.
Dawn Schmitz
In recent years, academic libraries have launched major initiatives to make their resources more easily available to users. But with this increasingly sophisticated infrastructure comes a user environment that is challenging for libraries to assess because it can often appear seamless from the user’s perspective, making it difficult for users to report back on their experiences in a meaningful way. This creates the conundrum: How can we learn who is using these new resources and how well are they meeting users’ needs?
Go to source: http://www.clir.org/
Great expectations of ICT: how HE institutions are measuring up
Friday, 27 June 2008 2:32:24 p.m.
The research re-visits a cohort of the school and college students who participated in phase one of the research in June 2007 to explore how their current experiences of ICT in their first year of higher education match up with their expectations. A representative sample of first year students from across the UK was also surveyed to identify whether findings emerging from the cohort were reflected across the wider student population. Over 1,000 students were researched using quantitative and qualitative techniques.
Go to Source: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/publications/greatexpectations
RSP Briefing Paper on Repository Policies
Friday, 27 June 2008 2:25:30 p.m.
Planning and maintaining a repository involves asking and answering questions on an ongoing basis. A policy framework gives a structure to
defining and recording decisions resulting from this process and ensures consistency in applying them. Defining policy is therefore a basic building
block in setting up a repository. This briefing paper identifies the benefits of a comprehensive policy framework and explores the different types
of policy that a repository should develop.
Go to Source: http://www.rsp.ac.uk/pubs/briefingpapers-docs/repoadmin-policyv2.pdf
Leo Waaijers Receives SPARC Europe Award for Outstanding Achievements in Scholarly Communications, 2008
Friday, 20 June 2008 4:25:55 p.m.
Leo Waaijers was formerly IATUL Treasurer and was convenor of the 22nd IATUL Conference in 2001.
LUND, Sweden – As part of the Fourth Nordic Conference on Scholarly Communications, held at the University of Lund in Sweden, Dr Leo Waaijers has been presented with the 2008 SPARC Europe Award for Outstanding Achievements in Scholarly Communications.
SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) Europe initiated the Award in 2006 to recognise the work of an individual or group within Europe that has made significant advances in our understanding of the issues surrounding scholarly communications and/or in developing practical means to address the problems with the current systems. In making the Award to Dr Waaijers the judging panel noted his tireless support for new models of scholarly communication and his innovative approach to repositories and their promotion, especially as initiator of the DARE programme and manager of DAREnet.
As manager of the SURF Platform ICT and Research, Dr Waaijers has initiated a number of important projects within the Netherlands, including the original DARE programme, the Keur der Wetenschap (Cream of Science) initiative and the honDAREduizend - or HunDAREdthousand – project. In addition, his influence as been felt throughout Europe and beyond as a widely-travelled advocate, initiator of the 2007 petition to the European Commission, and an important player in the DRIVER and DRIVER II programmes.
Wim Liebrand, director of SURF commented “Leo Waaijers deserves this tangible recognition for his work in the world of libraries, information technology and Open Access. We all know that Leo has been highly effective in his energetic attempts to improve the easier dissemination of knowledge. And that has had a direct and beneficial impact on both research and educational environments. Leo has guided the Netherlands to a lead position in supporting the fast changing world of scholarly communication and we, at SURF, are proud of that.”
Leo Waaijers said “Open Access is also about sharing inspiration, best practices and knowledge within the OA community itself. This has been the key success factor of DAREnet. For me, the SPARC Europe Award is recognizing exactly this. It is a great stimulus to proceed with this modus operandi.’
This is the third time the SPARC Europe Award for Outstanding Achievements in Scholarly Communications has been made. The first Award, in 2006, went to the Wellcome Trust and the second in 2007 to the SHERPA Group.
SPARC Europe is an alliance of 110 research-led university libraries from 14 European countries. It is affiliated with SPARC based in Washington, D.C., which represents over 200 institutions, mainly in North America. SPARC Europe and SPARC work to develop and promote new models of scholarly communication that increase the access to and utility of the research literature.
About SURF
SURF is the collaborative organisation for academic universities, universities of applied sciences and research institutions aimed at breakthrough innovations in ICT. SURF supports higher education and research in taking optimum advantage of the possibilities offered by ICT to improve the quality of education and research. SURF provides the foundation for the excellence of higher education and research in the Netherlands.
More information on DRIVER: www.driver-community.eu
More information on SURFshare: www.surf.nl/surfshare
Increasing trust in the content of repositories:version identification framework published
Friday, 30 May 2008 11:50:45 a.m.
Poor version identification hinders users’ trust in the research outputs they find in digital repositories. The JISC funded VIF (Version Identification Framework) project has completed a Framework of recommendations and solutions for all those with a role in repository use and implementation to address this problem.
A serious growing pain for digital repositories has been the issue of how to identify versions of open access (OA) works deposited in them. Draft versions, working papers, different formats, supporting material and so on are all accepted by repositories, but their version status is often poorly described and items are often not linked together appropriately. 'There are a range of solutions and suggestions for repository managers to take advantage of and to pick and choose from according to their needs.'
The Framework promotes better practice for repository staff, offering solutions that enable clearer understanding of version relationships as well as better version identification of digital objects, no matter how an end user accesses the object held in a repository.
Go to Source: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/news/stories/2008/05/digitalrepositories.aspx
Research Libraries and the Power of the Co-operative
Friday, 30 May 2008 11:48:01 a.m.
John MacColl
RLG Programs became part of OCLC in the summer of 2006. In November of last year, RLG Programs announced the appointment of a European Director, John MacColl. This article explains the rationale behind the combination of RLG with the OCLC Office of Research, and describes the work programme of the new Programs and Research Group. It argues for co-operation as the necessary response to the challenges presented to research libraries as the Web changes the way researchers work, and it lays out a new programme dedicated to research outputs, which will have significant European Partner involvement.
Go to Source: http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue55/maccoll/
Future of the Academic Library explored in major Guardian Supplement
Friday, 30 May 2008 11:44:51 a.m.
An eight-page special supplement is published in the Guardian newspaper today that examines the achievements of academic libraries in the UK, assesses current challenges and looks at how these might shape the future of our university libraries.
SCONUL members contributed to articles about a wide range of issues including library design, open access, and digital archiving including personal reflections from SCONUL Chair Anne Bell and other members on how technology has changed the role of the librarian in recent years.
In a lead article, editor Stephen Hoare says that academic libraries are rising to the challenges of changing user needs and finding new means of searching and navigating information.
The supplement also looks forward, and the editor comments, 'changing faster than at any time in their history. Information technology, online databases, and catalogues and digitised archives have put the library back at the heart of teaching, learning and academic research on campus.' Toby Bainton, SCONUL secretary adds that he sees libraries taking on a much more central, in-house publishing role in making the universities own research available.
SCONUL worked closely with partners JISC, who sponsored the supplement. The supplement marks the start of 'Libraries of the Future', an attempt by JISC to initiate a debate about academic libraries and to open up - with partner organisations and librarians themselves - a debate about the future of the academic and research library.
Go to Source:http://education.guardian.co.uk/librariesunleashed
Draft Interim Report: Assessing the Future Landscape of Scholarly Communication: An In-depth Study of Faculty Needs and Ways of Meeting Them.
Friday, 30 May 2008 11:40:02 a.m.
Diane Harley, Sarah Earl-Novell, Sophia Krzys Acord, Shannon Lawrence, and C. Judson King.
The Center for Studies in Higher Education, with generous funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, is conducting research to understand the needs and desires of faculty for in-progress scholarly communication (i.e., forms of communication employed as research is being executed) as well as archival publication. In the interest of developing a deeper understanding of how and why scholars do what they do to advance their fields as well as their careers, our approach focuses on fine-grained analyses of faculty values and behaviors throughout the scholarly communication lifecycle, including sharing, collaborating, publishing, and engaging with the public. Well into our second year, we have posted a draft interim report describing some of our early results and impressions based on the responses of more than 150 interviewees in the fields of astrophysics, archaeology, biology, economics, history, music, and political science.
Go to source:
http://cshe.berkeley.edu/publications/publications.php?id=300
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