Digital Commons Network^™

Decoding The Scholarly Resources Marketplace, Lindsay Cronk, Rachel M. Fleming

Charleston Library Conference

Developed with input from a variety of library workers and industry representatives, this session will provide a current and concise introduction to the scholarly resource marketplace for academic libraries, highlighting the financial and functional connections between major market actors providing services and content to libraries.

Discussions of vendor relations in libraries have often focused on the interpersonal collaboration of library workers and vendor representatives. In the process, they have overlooked or neglected the connections between publishers and vendors, their parent corporations and subsidiary companies.

Decoding requires a focus on vocabulary and building shared understanding of the marketplace for scholarly resources. …

Engaging Alumni: The How And Why Of Author Outreach For Dissertation Scanning Projects, Christy L. M. Shorey

Charleston Library Conference

In 2008 the University of Florida George A. Smathers Libraries began a project to digitize their collection of over 14,000 print dissertations, ranging from 1934 to 2006, and upload them to the Institutional Repository (IR@UF). At UF, copyright remains with dissertation authors and not the university. Thus, we started an outreach effort to ask authors to opt in to the Retrospective Dissertation Scanning (RDS) project. We worked with the Alumni Association to get contact information for our doctoral graduates, then reached out to them through multiple mediums: e-mail, letter, and postcard. In 2011 Gail Clement and Melissa Levine published “Copyright …

Good Partners? Can Open Access Publishers And Librarians Find Meaningful Ways To Collaborate?, Sarah L. Wipperman

Charleston Library Conference

What should the relationship be between the purely Open Access publishers and librarians? Yes, in theory, among publishers these are publishers who are fully aligned with libraries to end the stranglehold which the traditional subscription publishers have on libraries. Yes, they are 100% attribution-only (CC-BY) publishers living up to the goals of Open Access (as described in the Budapest Open Access Initiative [BOAI]). But, are they just replacing over-priced subscriptions with over-priced APCs (Article Processing Charges)?

Since they don't have renewal revenue at risk they may not pay sufficient attention to usage and integration with library systems [KBART?, COUNTER?, etc.]. …

Are Economic Pressures On University Press Acquisitions Quietly Changing The Shape Of The Scholarly Record?, Emily J. Farrell, Kizer S. Walker, Nicole A. Kendzejeski, Mahinder S. Kingra, Elizabeth Windsor

Charleston Library Conference

The monograph remains central to humanities and qualitative social science (HSS) research as the form most suitable for the long-form argument and, crucially, as foundational to the tenure process in these fields. University and other scholarly presses have played a vital role in supporting the publication of scholarly monographs where such narrow research is not seen as being as commercially viable as, for example, journals. While there appears to be an erosion of traditional revenue streams, new funding models are not yet recuperating costs for scholarly monographs. Library budgets continue to tighten, with new collection strategies taking hold, putting strain …

Going It Alone: Why University Presses Are Creating Their Own E-Book Collections, Charles Watkinson, Terry Ehling, Sharla Lair

Charleston Library Conference

Most university presses deliver their e-books to libraries through aggregators. However, in 2019, two university presses, the MIT Press and University of Michigan Press, will launch their own e-book offerings for direct sale to institutions, and other presses are considering following suit. While there are a few university presses who have offered their own e-book products for a number of years, the intensity of discussion within the university press community about “going it alone” is new and deserves further interrogation. This paper summarizes why the MIT Press and University of Michigan Press are taking the bold step of launching their …

Open Letter(S) On Open Access, Ingrid D. Becker, John G. Dove

Charleston Library Conference

It is well known that one major obstacle to achieving open access (OA) is misunderstanding among stakeholders; some say it is the biggest problem of all. Throughout the supply-chain of producing and consuming scholarly literature, many participants—especially authors—understand the broader objectives of OA but not the practical steps they can take to help increase the accessibility of research. The purpose of “Open Letter(s) on Open Access” (OLOA) is to provide initial examples of communications that illustrate such steps. We do so by examining sets of well-regarded academic sources and evaluating the various paths that authors choose as a means of …

Preparing Researchers For Publishing Success: The Case Of Auburn University, George Stachokas

Charleston Library Conference

As part of a panel discussion organized by Dr. Gwen Taylor of Wiley, this paper reviews current efforts undertaken by Auburn University Libraries to support the research enterprise at Auburn University, including preparing researchers for publishing access. Despite financial constraints, Auburn University endeavors to transition from a Carnegie Classification of R2 to R1, add 500 new faculty members by 2022, and increase research output in STEM disciplines, agriculture, allied health sciences, and cybersecurity. The Libraries are working to support all of these efforts through cost effective collection development, systematic improvements in assessment, catching up with aspirational peers by implementing best …

International Copyright In Historical Context: Who Are The Real Pirates?, Paul G. St-Pierre

Charleston Library Conference

Copyright is usually justified with arguments about defending the natural right of authors to control their creations, or claims that limited monopolies spur innovation for the greater good of society. I contrarily assert that the primary intent of copyright has generally been to protect powerful industries in advanced countries and ensure control over emerging markets that rely on the importation of intellectual property.

As global trade expanded in the 19th century, a patchwork quilt of domestic copyright laws and bilateral treaties failed to stem rampant infringement that hurt publishers’ export revenues. Re-printers and readers, however, benefited from lower prices. The …

Supporting Open Education With The Wind At Your Back: Lessons For Oer Programs From The Open Textbook Toolkit, Mira Waller, Will Cross, Erica Hayes

Charleston Library Conference

What does it take to move open education from idea to practice? In this session we led a discussion about what supports instructors need to engage with open education and how we can make adoption and adaptation easy and inviting. We set the stage with an overview of findings from our IMLS-funded research (LG-72-17-0051-17) on the needs and practices of psychology instructors for adopting or creating open textbooks and OER. We then shared some lessons on what faculty say they need and where they feel we can do better, as well as offered some insights from our research on student …

Transfer Turns Ten: The Future Of The Code, Jennifer W. Bazeley, Gaëlle Béquet

Charleston Library Conference

Libraries, publishers, and intermediary vendors strive to disseminate the most current information to their patrons and clients through the metadata in their catalogs, services, and software. One significant pinch point in this landscape is the transfer of journals from one publisher to another. The Transfer Code of Practice was created to provide these stakeholders with guidelines to ensure that the transfer process occurs with minimal disruption and that journal content remains accessible to subscribers. The importance of these guidelines has grown since the creation of the Transfer Code in 2008, as the number of online titles, publishers, and intermediaries has …

A Dream Of Spring: Creation Of An Ir Managers Forum, Christy L. M. Shorey, Anna J. Dabrowski, Pamela Andrews, Erin Jerome

Charleston Library Conference

Sometimes it’s hard to find answers for work-related questions. This difficulty is compounded when one lacks the means to engage with a community of peers who face similar situations and problems. As institutional repository (IR) managers, we found ourselves with access to resources and listservs that didn’t quite fit our needs. Available discussion spaces were either too general in scope, drowning out repository-specific concerns; or too narrowly focused on platform-specific issues and technical details.

Lacking an appropriate forum, we decided to create a discussion space for IR managers. The IR Manager Forum (https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/irmanagers) is designed to foster a community of …

The Saint Xavier University Freshman Oer Challenge, David Stern

Charleston Library Conference

A previous article described a variety of possibilities for enhancing pedagogy while reducing costs to students. The impetus was a migration away from expensive textbooks and toward more affordable or free teaching materials. The conference presentation “Textbook Alternatives: Less Expensive and Better Pedagogy” discussed many of these issues, with suggestions for implementation incentives. This paper provides additional information about the Freshman OER Challenge initiative mentioned in the presentation.

Managing Vendor Relationships, Michael Rodriguez, Jason Chabak, Lindsay Cronk, Allen Jones, Christine M. Stamison, Kimberly Steinle

Charleston Library Conference

Libraries and vendors are all too often trapped in the paradigm of swapping content and services for dollars. Pivoting from this transactional model, this preconference panel of one moderator and five speakers explored the following questions: How can librarians and vendors work together to develop better products and services? What can impede these relationships? What are best practices for collaborating effectively and ethically? How can everyone build, negotiate, and sustain these relationships for mutual benefit? And when conflict inevitably arises, how do we deal with it? This preconference featured perspectives from two vendors, three libraries, and one consortium, based in …

Publishing Community Efforts And Solutions To Mitigate The Risks Sci-Hub Poses To Researchers, Librarians, And Publishers, Sari Frances, Juan P. Denzer, Don Hamparian

Charleston Library Conference

Sci-Hub has been referred to as the “Robin Hood” of science, but in reality, it is not. Sci-Hub is a disruption to the entire scholarly publishing research cycle. Over the last three years, the amount of licensed e-content that has been illegally obtained by Sci-Hub has grown significantly. This content has been acquired through stolen institutional staff and student credentials. Acquiring and misappropriating these credentials creates serious risks for an institution’s systems and users as well as publishers. What can libraries and publishers do to minimize or eliminate these infractions? This discussion about the collective efforts of publishers, libraries, and …

Data Curation Workshop: Tips And Tools For Today, Matthew M. Benzing

Charleston Library Conference

The current state of research data is like a disorganized photo collection: a mix of formats scattered across different media without a lot of authority control. That is changing as the need to make data available to researchers across the world is becoming recognized. Researchers know that their data needs to be maintained and made accessible, but often they do not have the time or the inclination to get involved in all of the details. This provides an excellent opportunity for librarians. Data curation is the process of preparing data to be made available in a repository with the goal …

On The Winds Of Change: Repositories, Researchers And Technologies: The 18th Health Sciences Lively Lunch Discussion, Jean Gudenas, Ramune K. Kubilius, Anthony Watkinson, John Felts

Charleston Library Conference

This year’s sponsored but no holds barred health sciences lively lunchtime gathering again was open to all. Moderator Jean Gudenas introduced this year’s three presentations: a report on a survey, a report on a research study, and a technology update. Ramune Kubilius provided a brief annual traditional update on developments in the health sciences publishing world. She then segued to highlighting some findings from a survey she and two co-authors conducted in December 2017-January 2018 of AAHSL (Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries) members on medical school institutional repositories (IRs). She focused on responses to questions about IR collections and …

Report On The 2019 International Association Of University Libraries Pre-Conference Seminar: Library Strategies For Research Support Excellence, Amanda Bellenger, Katie Mills

Proceedings of the IATUL Conferences

The Library Strategies for Research Support Excellence half-day seminar was held on the 23 June 2019 at the Reid Library, University of Western Australia (UWA). The event was organised by International Association of University Libraries (IATUL), UWA and Curtin University, and was sponsored by CNKI. The seminar provided an opportunity for senior university library leaders from around the world, including China, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Saudi Arabia, and Africa to discuss the current initiatives and challenges associated with research support in their respective regions.