Digital Commons Network^™

The Green Advantage: An Analysis Of Open Access Publications At A Mid-Sized University, Lisa M. Rose-Wiles, Maria A. Barca

Library Publications

Introduction: The escalating cost of journals, loss of access to research results, and mandates by funding agencies favor Open Access (OA). The suggestion that OA publications are cited more than those behind paywalls should appeal to faculty where citations are critical for promotion and tenure. Further, the option to publish Green OA without cost would be advantageous to faculty who lack financial support for OA publications.

Methods: We used data from Scopus to analyze field weighted citation counts (FWCI) for OA publications over 20 years in terms of OA type, document type, subject area, and subject normalized impact factor.

Results: …

Oakwood Cemetery Register, Book 1, Computational Dataset, Department Of Digital Stewardship

Collections as Data

This computational dataset was developed from a transcription of Book 1 of the Oakwood Cemetery Registers, held by Oakwood Cemeteries of Syracuse, Inc. in Syracuse, New York. The project to digitize and transcribe the handwritten register was initiated by Syracuse University Newhouse School of Public Communications and accomplished as a joint project between Newhouse, the Syracuse University Libraries, and the Central New York Library Resources Council.

The register documents interments from 8 November 1859 through 27 March 1902 and includes pertinent information about the deceased. The transcribed information has been normalized by Libraries staff for use as computational data. Please …

Oakwood Cemetery Register, Book 1, Transcription Dataset, Department Of Digital Stewardship

Collections as Data

This dataset contains a transcription of Book 1 of the Oakwood Cemetery Registers, held by Oakwood Cemeteries of Syracuse, Inc. in Syracuse, New York. The project to digitize and transcribe this handwritten register was initiated by Syracuse University Newhouse School of Public Communications and accomplished as a joint project between Newhouse, the Syracuse University Libraries, and the Central New York Library Resources Council.

The register documents interments from 8 November 1859 through 27 March 1902 and includes pertinent information about the deceased.

Please scroll to the bottom of this page to access the read_me under "additional files."

Improving Queries To Retrieval-Augmented Generation Ai Tools By Inferring The Sources Of Bad Results, Julie Arendt

VCU Libraries Faculty and Staff Presentations

Since ChatGPT’s wide release, businesses have rushed into expanding their use of generative artificial intelligence. Information providers, including suppliers of library databases and integrated library systems, are joining the trend, with many products combining the verifiability of direct source access and citation with the conversational answers produced through large language models. Retrieval-augmented generation is a common technique that overlays search results with text extracted and processed through generative artificial intelligence. This poster provides an overview of retrieval-augmented generation and summarizes ways that it can produce errors. Strategies for improving results, based on those error modes are suggested.

Navigating Censorship: The Impact Of Book Challenges On Library Professionals And Advocates In Virginia, Hope Y. Kelly Phd, Easter Digangi

VCU Libraries Faculty and Staff Presentations

This work seeks to document the effects of book challenges and other censorship efforts on library professionals and advocates in Virginia in the early 2020s. The results offer insights into the lived experiences of individuals, highlighting the implications of censorship across the state. This work was a collaborative effort with a Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) Librarian and an active member of Virginia Library Association’s (VLA) Intellectual Freedom Committee that developed after initial interviews from association leaders (VLA & Virginia Association of School Librarians) had been collected in 2023.

Rising To Meet The Needs Of All Our Students: The Inclusive Service Excellence Working Group At Vcu Libraries, Jennifer A. Stout, John T. Glover, Laura Crouch, Isabella Pence-Lanctot

VCU Libraries Faculty and Staff Presentations

VCU Libraries’ Inclusive Service Excellence Working Group was established to enrich the patron experience with public service units. Equity and inclusion were its guiding principles as its members reviewed the literature, sought user feedback, and engaged with focus groups. Stop by to learn about the group’s work and long-term impact.

Best Practices For Cataloging Digital Media Storage Devices Using Rda And Marc21, Online Audiovisual Catalogers Inc. Cataloging Policy Committee And The Music Library Association Cataloging And Metadata Committee Joint Mla/Olac Media Devices Best Practices Task Force, Kristi Bergland, Bruce Evans, Mary Huismann, Barbara R. Tysinger

OLAC Publications and Training Materials

No abstract provided.

Vcu And The 2025 Virginia Course Materials Survey, Abbey Childs

Open and Affordable Course Content at VCU

No abstract provided.

Give Your Data A Glow-Up: Data Visualization With Tableau For Non-Programmers, Rachel Blume, Cameron Nielsen

Library Faculty & Staff Presentations

A well-designed data visualization can be a huge boost in effectively communicating your research findings. Tableau is the most popular, most powerful software for creating custom visualizations from complex datasets without requiring coding skills. This hands-on workshop will walk you through the basics of getting your data loaded into Tableau, choosing the right chart or graph type to best show off your findings, and customizing the results to look professional and aesthetically pleasing.

Assessment As Change Management: Facilitating Consensus, Decision-Making, And Culture Change Through A Scaffolded Approach To Ils Review And Selection, Joe Lasure, Lindsay Ozburn, Alex Sundt, Liz Woolcott

Library Faculty & Staff Presentations

Like many academic libraries, Utah State University Libraries have had a long and complex relationship with our integrated library systems (ILS). After migrating to SirsiDynix’s Symphony ILS from their older Horizon system in 2009, the Libraries moved to Innovative Interfaces Inc.’s Sierra platform in 2012. These back-to-back migrations not only created frustration and fatigue amongst library staff, the decision-making processes that led to the migrations were also flawed and lacked genuine staff involvement. This resulted in problems during the implementation stage, such as workloads being inadvertently shifted from one unit to another. Understandably, this bred some long-standing resentment towards the …

Impact Of Transitioning From Ip-Based To Federated Access: A Case Study On Reducing Support Requests, John W. Felts

Library Faculty Publications

This case study describes how transitioning to OpenAthens transformed Coastal Carolina University's access model to scholarly online information. It reports how the switch improved the user experience by enabling seamless, point-of-need authentication, strengthened privacy and security, and ultimately reduced staff time spent on access-related support by approximately 75%.

Bibliographic Instruction And The Need For “Librarian-First” Oer Repositories, Michael Kirby

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Interrogating The Sacred And Special: Engaging Students In Diversifying Special Collections, Susan Falciani Maldonado, Sharon L. Albert

Faculty Contributions to Books

The answer to the question “What is the future of special collections?” is one that has evolved in scope over the past twenty-five years. Through the late twentieth century, the role of the special collections librarian seemed largely curatorial: to conserve these precious, unique resources—rare books, archival material, and other unique collections— for posterity and for “serious” researchers. While it remains true that the nature of its special collections can distinguish an academic library in ways that its database and print holdings may not, what emerged in the late 1990s and early 2000s was a movement to put rare books …

Genre Audiences, Lcgft And User Warrant: An Exploratory Study, Deborah Tomaras, Allison Bailund, Joshua Bergmann, Abby Dover, Steven W. Holloway, C. Rockwell Strader

Law Librarian Scholarship

The Library of Congress Genre/Form Terms (LCGFT) vocabulary is among the most prominent genre vocabularies used in library cataloging. To investigate how the current application of LCGFT affects users’ genre access, we gathered data from library patrons, library staff, and parties involved in genre creation and use. The results demonstrate that patrons actively seek out genre materials in libraries, often via library catalogs, and that LCGFT has room for growth and expansion that might enhance patrons’ search experience.

We’Ve Got A Lot Incommon: Sailing Into Electronic Resource Access Protection… One Vendor At A Time, Joni Addis, Michelle E. Colquitt, Chris Morris

Presentations

No abstract provided.

Old Dominion University Libraries Annual Report 2024-2025, Jennifer Hoyt, Alisa Faumore, Alex Aycock

Libraries Reports and Documents

Annual Report of the Old Dominion University Libraries for FY 2024-2025.

The report was written by the Libraries' Department of Engagement:

• Jennifer Hoyt, Head of Libraries’ Engagement
• Alisa Faumore, Communications Coordinator
• Alex Aycock, Assistant Communications Coordinator

Drawn To Gov Docs, Arizona State University, Fletcher Library

Art and Music

Photographs, Collection Description, and Bibliography for a display of government documents from Fletcher Library at Arizona State University.

Ai Literacy For Instructors Certificate Teaching Materials, Justine Martin

All Resources

These documents contain teaching materials for a four week AI literacy certificate program for instructors. The items include a syllabus, four after class worksheet assignments, and four PowerPoint presentations to guide synchronous Zoom sessions. These materials will help instructors build foundational knowledge and practical skills in the use and evaluation of generative AI (artificial intelligence). Facilitators will be able to explain how generative AI works, promote the applied use of AI chatbots for teaching purposes, and provide discussion and reflection on the ethical ramifications of AI use in higher education classrooms.

Relational Database Schema To Support Research Profiling Studies, Natural Language Processing, And Bibliometric Analysis, Darnelle Melvin

Library Faculty Research

In this paper, a relational database schema is introduced that supports rapid prototyping, data preprocessing, and warehousing tasks associated with research profiling studies, natural language processing, and bibliometric analysis. Python scripts are leveraged for the seamless retrieval and processing of data from Semantic Scholar. This schema is tailored to efficiently analyze entities such as authors, their scientific papers, referenced papers, and cited papers. Adhering to the relational model, this schema offers a standardized approach to data storage and detailed information retrieval for scientific papers. Enhancing knowledge discovery in scientific databases, this schema provides researchers with a powerful platform for robust …

Introduction, Amanda Koziura, Amy Tureen

Library Faculty Research

Introduction to the book Making Values-Based Decisions in the Academic Library.

A Phenomenological Study Of Gender And The Leadership Of Female Academic Library Directors, Julia D. Grace Dr

Dissertations

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore how the gender of female academic library directors affects their leadership. The theory guiding this study was Acker’s theory of the ideal worker, as it offers a framework for examining the impact of worker gender in the workplace. The central research question of this study examined how the gender of female library directors at medium nonprofit private universities and colleges in the U.S. affected their leadership. This study utilized a phenomenological approach, conducting semi-structured interviews of female academic library directors at medium nonprofit private universities and colleges in the U.S. The …

Women's And Men's Authorship Experiences: A Prospective Meta Analysis, George C. Banks, Lisa M. Rasmussen, Scott Tonidandel, Jeffrey M. Pollack, Mary M. Hausfeld, Courtney Williams, Betsy H. Albritton, Joseph A. Allen, Nicolas Bastardoz, John H. Batchelor, Andrew A. Bennett, Roman Briker, Christopher M. Castille, Bart A. De Jong, Elise Demeter, Justin A. Desimone, James G. Field, Maria Figueroa-Armijos, M. Fernanda Garcia, William L. Gardner, J. Jeffrey Gish, Laura M. Giurge, Claudia N. Gonzalez-Brambila, M. Gloria González-Morales, Lorenz Graf-Vlachy, Roopak Kumar Gupta, Amanda S. Hinojosa, Zion Howard, Sven Kepes, Tine Köhler, Dejun Tony Kong, Markus Langer, Teng Lat Loi, Liam P. Maher, Chao Miao, Murad A. Mithani, Lakshmi Balachandran Nair, William G. Obenauer, Ernest H. O'Boyle, Jason R. Pierce, Deborah M. Powell, Roni Reiter-Palmon, Deborah E. Rupp, Srinivasan Tatachari, Jane S. Thomas, Tiia Vissak, Jako Volschenk, Chen Wang, Christopher E. Whelpley, Hans-Georg Wolff, Haley M. Woznyj, Tao Yang

Management Faculty Publications

The opaqueness of author naming and ordering, when coupled with power dynamics, can lead to a number of disadvantages in academic careers. In this commentary, we investigate gender differences in authorship experiences in a large prospective meta-analytic study (k = 46; n = 3,565; 12 countries). We find that women’s and men’s authorship experiences differ significantly with women reporting greater prevalence of problematic behaviors. We present seven actionable recommendations for improving the receipt and reporting of intellectual credit. Such actions are needed to ensure fairness in authorship, which is one of the most powerful factors in academics’ career outcomes.

Building A Professional Learning Community To Improve Technical Services Librarians' Teaching Preparedness, Junli Diao

Publications and Research

The Applied Improvement Project (AIP) was conducted to address the inconsistency of academic librarians’ teaching engagement on the AIP site. The problem of practice was framed as the gap between having all librarians prepared to teach and technical services librarians’ unpreparedness to teach. The implemented intervention was developing a professional learning community among technical services librarians of different generations with a variety of teaching experiences to increase teaching preparedness by sharing, discussing, and reflecting. The learning topics covered library teaching basics, motivating students, self-assessment, planning to teach, using Wikipedia, embedded librarianship and credit-bearing courses, teaching and research, and building a …

Why Academic Law Librarians Quit: Results Of The Law Librarian Exit Survey, Laura J. Ax-Fultz

Faculty Scholarly Works

The pandemic exposed the struggles of workers everywhere. The complexity of handling family, work, illness, and a host of other issues led many to reconsider their employment. The phrase “The Great Resignation” summed up the zeitgeist of the early pandemic. Concurrently, open positions for academic law librarians were increasing. I sought to unravel the apparent surge in open positions by surveying academic law librarians to discover why they resigned from their positions or considered leaving them during the period of January 2020 through June 2023.

These findings were evaluated within the context of a high volume of job postings in …

Math And Aftermath: Impacts Of Unbundling A Large Journal Package On Researcher Perceptions And Behavior, Kizer S. Walker, Adam Chandler, Caitlin Finlay, Gabriela Castro Gessner, Tobi Hines, Jesse Koennecke, Susan Kendrick, Leah Mcewen, Jacob Sayward, Henrik W.W. Spoon

Articles

This study seeks to understand the effects on researchers’ work at a large research university in the wake of the university library’s shift from a near-comprehensive journals package with a single, large publisher to a selective list of individual journal subscriptions. Analyzing historical journal usage, along with turnaway and interlibrary loan trends from the years following the changes, the authors made use of structured interviews with local researchers to bring context and meaning to the quantitative data. The interviews highlighted researchers’ strategies for gaining access to literature in their fields to which the library does not subscribe, and revealed assumptions …

Sandwich Framework For Using Ai For Literature/Evidence Searching, Roy E. Brown

VCU Libraries Faculty and Staff Publications

This framework offers a structured approach to conducting comprehensive literature/evidence searches by combining artificial intelligence capabilities with human expertise. This framework enhances the process through a three-step methodology that leverages the strengths of both AI and human judgment.

Resilience And Reality: Exploring The Lived Experiences Of People Living With Hiv In Texas During The Covid-19 Pandemic – A Qualitative Study., Ahmed F. Alanazi

Social Work Dissertations - Archive

This study investigated the lived experiences of individuals living with HIV (PLWH) in the Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) area of Texas during the COVID-19 pandemic, using an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) framework. The research examined the intersection of health, social dynamics, and psychological resilience among PLWH, who faced compounded vulnerabilities due to systemic inequities and the dual public health crises of HIV and COVID-19. Through semi-structured interviews with ten participants from diverse backgrounds, the study captured the profound impacts of disrupted healthcare systems, heightened stigma, and social isolation on this marginalized population. The findings reveal that the pandemic exacerbated existing inequities …

Interaction Mechanism Between Health Anxiety And Information Seeking Behavior From The Perspective Of Phenomenology, Yanfeng Zhang, Minqian Yu

Journal of Scientific Information Research

[Purpose/significance]To analyze the evolution characteristics of health anxiety before and after information search behavior from the perspective of phenomenological graph analysis, and to explain the internal mechanism of the interaction between health anxiety and information search behavior. [Method/process]By using the phenomenological qualitative research method, the interactive mechanism between health anxiety and information search behavior was deeply explored. Based on the I-PACE theoretical model framework, the model elements of users' health anxiety and information search behavior were analyzed from the four dimensions of "Person-Affect-Cognition-Execution". To construct a mechanistic relationship model between health anxiety and information search behavior. [Result/conclusion]The research results revealed …

Research On Automated Generation And Evaluation Of Patent Claimsbased On Gpt-4, Junhua Li, Qian Yuan, Xiang Yan, Changhong Lv

Journal of Scientific Information Research

[Purpose/significance]This study aims to automatically generate claims using the GPT-4 model, in order to reduce the writing difficulty for inventor and improve the work efficiency and quality. [Method/process]The article constructs Prompts suitable for automatically generating patent claims and implements four prompting strategies: ZeroShot, Exact-Drafting, Stepwise-Claim, and Exact-Step Claim. By inputting patent specifications and technical disclosure documents into the GPT-4 model and using Prompts to guide its output, the automated generation of patent claims is achieved. The ROUGE and BERTScore evaluation metrics were used to assess the quality of the text, and the generated text was analyzed in comparison with the …

Adding Libraries To The Equation: Mathematical Sciences’ Underutilization Of Academic Librarians, Jennifer Lc Burke, Elizabeth C. Novosel, Daniel G. Kipnis, Rasitha Jayesekere

Scholarship and Professional Work

Academic librarians do not engage with all disciplinary departments equally. Despite equal or even greater efforts, some departments are less responsive to librarian outreach. One such department is mathematics. To understand mathematics departments’ relationships with their academic librarians, three mathematics librarians created a 20-question survey that was disseminated to mathematics faculty, instructors, and instructional staff in the United States and Canada. Of the 188 survey participants, more than a third reported that they never engage with their librarians, approximately half only do so occasionally, and a mere eight percent of participants collaborated with librarians to provide information literacy instruction (IL) …