Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Measuring Altruistic Impact: A Model For Understanding The Social Justice Of Open Access, Margaret Heller, Franny Gaede

University Libraries: Faculty Publications and Other Works

INTRODUCTION Traditional assessment of ways in which open access initiatives and institutional repositories have provided a return on investment normally use pragmatic measures such as download counts and citation benefits. This pragmatic approach misses out on the powerful altruistic impact of improving access to international and/or marginalized communities. Using a frame of social justice, this article considers the importance of developing altruistic measures of repositories, particularly for institutions with missions specifically related to social justice and related themes. METHODS Using web analytics data for search keywords from eight institutions and geographic usage data from nine institutions, the authors were able …

Collaborative Growth Toward Discovery: Becoming Stronger Through Change, Margaret Heller, Hong Ma

University Libraries: Faculty Publications and Other Works

The radical act of replacing a traditional OPAC and ILS with a hosted library services platform (LSP) and web-scale discovery (WSD) system creates the impetus for libraries to rethink core workflows and practices. Both of these tools have the potential to greatly improve access to library collections and enhance user experience, but only if the implementation is a collaborative effort between different stakeholders, technical experts and subject librarians, grounded in a thoughtful selection process that emphasizes user needs. Furthermore, because this model removes the traditional OPAC, subject librarians must take on the challenge of understanding the tool and work as …

Resource Sharing Begins At Home: Opportunities For Library Partnerships On A University Campus, Robert A. Seal

University Libraries: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Purpose

This paper aims to demonstrate that academic library cooperation is not only limited to work with other institutions but also includes partnerships with related campus units. The primary goal of interdepartmental collaboration is to enhance student success, a common institutional priority in the twenty-first century.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper offers examples of successful library/campus collaboration along with goals, advantages, disadvantages and challenges of such activity. Elements necessary for success as well as the importance of project assessment are emphasized.

Findings

Many opportunities for cooperation exist, especially with student development, centers for teaching excellence, information technology, academic departments, writing centers and …