Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 6 of 6

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

The Secret Lives Of Ebooks: A Paratextual Analysis Illuminates A Veil Of Usage Statistics, Jonathan H. Harwell, Erin Gallagher Jan 2018

The Secret Lives Of Ebooks: A Paratextual Analysis Illuminates A Veil Of Usage Statistics, Jonathan H. Harwell, Erin Gallagher

Faculty Publications

This study applies the method of paratextual analysis to six electronic books, or ebooks, in an academic library collection at a small liberal arts college. Two books are selected from each of three platforms: ebrary, EBSCO, and SpringerLink. The characteristics of each book are described, including design and readership, as well as 2 years of usage statistics from the specific library, and altmetrics where available. The paratextual study leads to a closer investigation of the usage statistics themselves and concludes that despite industry standards, they are not calculated consistently across vendor platforms and that while these data are invisible …


Atg Special Report — Purchasing Articles By Demand-Driven Acquisition: An Alternative Serial Distribution Model For Libraries, Jonathan H. Harwell, James Bunnelle Feb 2017

Atg Special Report — Purchasing Articles By Demand-Driven Acquisition: An Alternative Serial Distribution Model For Libraries, Jonathan H. Harwell, James Bunnelle

Faculty Publications

It’s 2017, and library patrons still have limited ways to access the text of articles behind pay walls. The current mix of subscriptions, interlibrary loan or document delivery, and pay per view is unsustainable for endangered library budgets, and thus is unsustainable for publishers. It’s time to begin leveraging the tools we use for e-books-- discovery services, demand-driven acquisition (DDA), and perpetual purchase-- and apply them to articles. After all, the distinction between a monograph and a serial is fluid. Books in series, book-length articles, article-length books, and special issues sold as monographs illustrate the folly of treating them as …


Approaching Discovery As Part Of A Library Service Platform: Lessons Learned, Nathan Hosburgh Jan 2016

Approaching Discovery As Part Of A Library Service Platform: Lessons Learned, Nathan Hosburgh

Faculty Publications

Discovery systems such as Summon, EBSCO Discovery Service, Primo, and WorldCat Discovery Services have become part of academic libraries' standard toolbox. The Olin Library at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida, became an early adopter of Serials Solutions Summon Service in 2009, enhancing access to print and electronic material. Although this has led to general improvements over the fractured searching of the traditional online catalog, database list, A-Z journal list, and digital repository, we recognized that the disparate systems hampered our ability to deliver a superior discovery experience and effectively provide other library services for our patrons.
Therefore, we did …


Oa In The Library Collection: The Challenges Of Identifying And Maintaining Open Access Resources, Nathan Hosburgh, Chris Bulock May 2015

Oa In The Library Collection: The Challenges Of Identifying And Maintaining Open Access Resources, Nathan Hosburgh, Chris Bulock

Faculty Publications

While librarians, researchers, and the general public have embraced the concept of Open Access (OA), librarians still have a difficult time managing OA resources. To find out why, Bulock and Hosburgh surveyed librarians about their experiences managing OA resources and the strengths and weaknesses of management systems. At this session, they shared survey results, reflected on OA workflows at their own libraries, and updated audience members on relevant standards and initiatives. Survey respondents reported challenges related to hybrid OA, inaccurate metadata, and inconsistent communication along the serials supply chain. Recommended solutions included the creation of consistent, centralized article-level metadata and …


A User-Centered Approach To Addressing Issues Of Discoverability And Access, Nathan Hosburgh, Tess Graham Jul 2014

A User-Centered Approach To Addressing Issues Of Discoverability And Access, Nathan Hosburgh, Tess Graham

Faculty Publications

eResource access problems challenge electronic resources librari- ans and frustrate users. Challenges of using library systems can include information overload, links that do not work properly, incorrect metadata, and questionable relevance to search results. Nate Hosburgh, Electronic Resources Librarian at Montana State University, gave a presentation titled “A User-Centered Approach to Addressing Issues of Discoverability and Access” at the Mississippi State University Libraries’ eResource & Emerging Technologies Summit held in the Mitchell Memorial Library on August 2, 2013. Hosburgh spoke of lessons he and his team learned about troubleshooting eResources and his team’s approach to issues of discoverability and access.


Library Security Gates: Effectiveness And Current Practice, Jonathan H. Harwell Apr 2014

Library Security Gates: Effectiveness And Current Practice, Jonathan H. Harwell

Faculty Publications

For years, library personnel have relied on security gates to prevent theft from their collections. However, recent anecdotal evidence suggests that libraries are removing the gates for various reasons, including cost and patron frustration with false alarms. This study examines current practices via a survey of libraries and security gate vendors and analyzes the effectiveness of security gates by empirical testing of alarms and with loss inventories of collection samples, supplemented by lost item statistics from interlibrary loan. Thus we use three primary methods to assess libraries’ approaches to security gates.