Friday, June 27, 2008

RSP Briefing Paper on Repository Policies

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

Friday, June 20, 2008

Leo Waaijers Receives SPARC Europe Award for Outstanding Achievements in Scholarly Communications, 2008

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...

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Friday, May 30, 2008

Increasing trust in the content of repositories:version identification framework published

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:...

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Friday, May 30, 2008

Research Libraries and the Power of the Co-operative

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/

Friday, May 30, 2008

Future of the Academic Library explored in major Guardian Supplement

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.

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Friday, May 30, 2008

Draft Interim Report: Assessing the Future Landscape of Scholarly Communication: An In-depth Study of Faculty Needs and Ways of Meeting Them.

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=...

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