Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Using Technology To Facilitate Pre‐Acquisition Workflows For Electronic Resources, Paoshan W. Yue

Charleston Library Conference

Investigation of new e‐resource requests before a purchase decision is made can be very complex, potentially involving gathering information from various parties (publishers/vendors, library stakeholders), setting up a trial, gathering trial feedback, and making sure stakeholders are notified in a timely manner throughout of the investigation process. The University of Nevada, Reno Libraries approached this management challenge by creating a dynamic online form. With its front end originated in InfoPath and its backend database and workflow controlled in SharePoint, this form allows an automated process covering request submission, product evaluation, collection development review, and selection decision. All the information regarding …

Strengthening Regional Collections One Request At A Time: Using Resource Sharing Technology To Facilitate Coordinated Collection Development, Shannon Pritting, Kate Ross

Charleston Library Conference

There can be many barriers for success in Coordinated Collection Development (CCD) projects. Delivery and ownership are major concerns, and libraries are committing institutional funds, often to contribute to group or consortial collections, which requires trust and a consistent measuring of whether the CCD venture is a good use of scarce collection dollars. CCD efforts often require advance agreement on policies, collection areas, and dedicated funds, which can lead to decreased overall satisfaction. In many CCD projects, mutual trust is not built through a shared practice and workflow that allows for choice and data-driven decisions but is established through CCD …

Liaison Librarians In The Know: Methods For Discovering Faculty Research And Teaching Needs, Nora B. Wood, Melanie Griffin

Charleston Library Conference

Libraries constantly seek information from their faculty partners on what, precisely, is needed from the library to support their teaching and research needs. This paper uses a case study from the University of South Florida (USF) as a framework to explore methods for determining the curriculum and research needs of faculty across disciplinary boundaries and ways for promoting library resources and services to departments across campus. Using syllabus analysis, website analysis, focus groups, and interviews, this project sought to evaluate faculty needs without relying on surveys. The data gathered from this case study will allow the liaisons at the University …

Finding The Right Fit For Article Delivery: Using Resource Sharing Technology To Provide Enhanced Access, Shannon Pritting

Charleston Library Conference

Electronic subscriptions occupy an ever increasing majority of budgets and prevent libraries from expanding services in other areas. There are few attractive options for libraries who want to provide access to research materials to users in a way that is cost effective and simple for users. Libraries are caught between subscriptions to single journals, large packages, or article-level purchasing that is either not instant or must allow access to everyone, which can quickly become costly. The IDS Article Gateway platform, developed by the IDS Project and SUNY Polytechnic Institute Library, uses resource-sharing technology and workflows to deliver fast or instant …

A Tale Of Two Campuses: Open Educational Resources In Florida And California Academic Institutions, Alejandra Nann, Julia I. Hess, Sarah Norris, John Raible

Charleston Library Conference

Open educational resources (OER) provide a high-quality and low-cost alternative to traditional textbooks. The University of Central Florida (UCF) and the University of San Diego (USD) have been engaged in a multitude of efforts related to OER and textbook affordability. This article will discuss the textbook affordability climate at the state (Florida and California) and institutional (UCF and USD) level. Macro and microventures and lessons learned will be shared by both institutions ranging from perceptions of open education resources by the universities to collaborating with constituents across campus, in addition to specific case studies with UCF faculty teaching online and …

Head In The Clouds: Will A Next-Generation Library Management System Bring Clear Vision?, Denise M. Branch

Charleston Library Conference

Multiple systems, disconnected workflows, and siloed information have plagued libraries for years. Librarians are tired of wrestling with inefficiencies and are seeking ways to unify their environment. Fortunately, they have discovered an effective tool to combat inefficiencies. Next generation library management systems are a new technology that brings many benefits. With these cloud-based systems a network of remote servers are hosted on the Internet that store, manage and process data rather than on a local server. They can transform the way services are delivered bringing streamlined workflows and enabling increased visibility and accessibility of all resources to the user community. …

Wrangle Your Data Like A Pro With The Data Processing Power Of Python, Geoffrey P. Timms, Jeremy M. Brown

Charleston Library Conference

Management, delivery, and marketing of library resources and collections necessitate interaction with a plethora of data from many sources and in many forms. Accessing and transforming data into meaningful information or different formats used in library automation can be time consuming, but a working knowledge of a programming language can improve efficiency in many facets of librarianship. From processing lists to creating extensible markup language (XML), from editing machine-readable cataloging (MARC) records before upload to automating statistical reports, the Python programming language and third-party application programming interfaces (APIs) can be used to accomplish both behind-the-scenes tasks and end-user facing projects. …

Supporting Research Information Management In The Research University: Partnerships, Challenges, And Possibilities, Rebecca Bryant, Beth Sandore Namachchivaya, Julie Speer

Charleston Library Conference

Research universities are increasingly engaging in complex efforts to collect and synthesize information about an institution’s research footprint. The collection, updating, and sharing of the campus’s bibliographic research outputs is an increasingly important part of this effort, as institutions seek to develop external profiling systems and enable collaborator discovery and to also increasingly internally understand the research strengths and synergies of an institution for planning and assessment. Institutions are adopting a variety of tools to support research information management (RIM), faculty activity reporting (FAR), and researcher collaboration and discovery on campus. In this presentation, we will talk about the complex …

Wrangling Services Contracts In Libraries, Michael Rodriguez

Charleston Library Conference

As more and more academic libraries outsource information technology services and enter into cooperative consortial schemes with other organizations, librarians push into a minefield of contractual negotiations, obligations, and liabilities more complicated and consequential than the typical e-resource licenses is. A poorly wordsmithed license may result in loss of access to journals, whereas becoming entangled in troubled consortia, watching an essential technology go offline during finals week, or getting audited by a vendor without contractual safeguards or recourse can produce much greater financial and administrative burdens. This concurrent session was a crash course in negotiating service contracts favorable to libraries, …

The Sky’S The Limit: Scholarly Communication, Digital Initiatives, Institutional Repositories, And Subject Librarians, Sarah A. Norris, Lee Dotson, Barbara Tierney, Richard H. Harrison Ii

Charleston Library Conference

The University of Central Florida’s institutional repository, Showcase of Text, Archives, Research, and Scholarship (STARS), has presented new opportunities for collaboration among the Libraries’ Office of Scholarly Communication, Digital Initiatives, Research Services, and subject librarians. Building on efforts to proactively promote scholarly communication initiatives to the university community, these four units have used the institutional repository as a foundation for collaboration, outreach, marketing, and educational efforts. This article will give an overview of a panel presentation given by members of these four units on STARS and highlight the role the institutional repository has in increasing the collaborative efforts of these …

Is Small Beautiful? The Position Of Independent Scholarly Publishers In An Environment Of Rapid Industry Consolidation, Charlie Remy, Steve Cohn, Richard Gallagher, George Leaman

Charleston Library Conference

The publishing industry continues to consolidate, with large multinational publishers acquiring journals and other content from academic societies and independent publishers. This panel provided candid insights into the challenges facing smaller publishers, including how/why they continue to exist in a business environment increasingly dominated by large companies. The discussion examined the advantages that smaller, independent publishers enjoy and addressed their adaptation strategies, business planning (including open versus paid access models), strategic partnerships, technical infrastructure, production procedures, relationships with libraries, and the work needed to meet the evolving needs of library end users. The impact of industry consolidation on libraries, including …

Humanities Collaborations And Research Practices: Investigating New Modes Of Collaborative Humanities Scholarship, Harriett Green, Angela Courtney, Megan Senseney

Charleston Library Conference

This paper presents preliminary findings from “Humanities Collaborations and Research Practices: Exploring Scholarship in the Global Midwest,” (HCRP), a collaborative project led by librarians at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Indiana University that examines how collaborative and experimental research practices in the humanities affects scholarly practices, scholarly communication, and research outcomes.

The HCRP study examines a series of multi-institutional humanities research projects funded by the Humanities Without Walls (HWW) Global Midwest initiative, a Mellon Foundation-funded consortium of Midwest university humanities centers. We conducted 27 semi-structured interviews with scholars from diverse humanities disciplines who were HWW Global Midwest awardees. …

What Are Subject Liaisons When “Collections” And “Subjects” Don’T Matter?, Darby Orcutt, Mira Waller, Scott A. Warren

Charleston Library Conference

In this interactive lively lunch discussion, participants explored issues around how the traditional subject liaison role is evolving. Users increasingly require functional information support (e.g., for geographic information system (GIS) or data mining) rather than simply domain-specific. At the same time, reports from the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) Pilot Library Liaison Institute and others have noted self-conscious trends toward developing liaison roles that engage and support the full research life cycle, as opposed to traditional service models focused on building and promoting library collections as more or less fixed products. Hosts Darby Orcutt, Mira Waller, and Scott Warren outlined …

A Tale Of Two Liaison Programs: University Of Central Florida Libraries And Louisiana State University Libraries Partnering For Subject Librarian Excellence, Barbara G. Tierney, Lois Kuyper-Rushing

Charleston Library Conference

Are you considering establishing a new or re-invigorated subject liaison program in your library but don't know how to begin? Why not partner with an established liaison program at another library?

Throughout the spring and fall of 2015, key public service managers at Louisiana State University (LSU) Libraries visited six Association of Southeastern Research Libraries (ASERL) to see, among other things, successful liaison programs. The LSU librarians were particularly impressed with the University of Central Florida (UCF) Libraries’ three-year-old reimagined subject librarian program. Following this visit, LSU managers began reworking their program by fine-tuning liaisons’ program assignments and creating a …

Change It Up: Growing Your Career In A Wildly Different Organization, Betsy Appleton, Tina Herman Buck, Carol Seiler

Charleston Library Conference

The authors have worked in academic libraries (large and small, public and private); for library vendors; and in public libraries of varying sizes. This paper discusses their perspectives on the opportunities, surprises, and lessons learned via a substantial change in organizational type, structure, and/or size. In addition, ideas for evaluating job applicants with experience in a much different setting are provided.

Is A Gold Open Access World Viable For Research Universities?, Greg Tananbaum, Carol Tenopir, Ivy Anderson

Charleston Library Conference

Open access is at the heart of a seismic shift in scholarly publishing. In particular, gold open access (OA) has expanded at an accelerated pace, increasing in market share every year. In the gold OA model, financial viability shifts from the demand to the supply side, with article processing charges (APCs) a common scenario. Ideally, this model would be sustainable for academic research institutions, in that it would cost them cumulatively no more to pay APCs than they pay now in the traditional subscription model. APC-driven gold OA has financial and other implications for libraries, institutions, and authors. In the …

Bridging The Divide: Collaborating Across Departments To Improve Communication And Collections, Nancy Fawley, Laura Gewissler

Charleston Library Conference

Flat budgets, rising subscription rates, and the need to communicate the (bad) news to librarians and faculty are part of the academic library landscape. Additionally, the University of Vermont recently implemented incentivebased budgeting, requiring financial transparency and demonstration of value to community stakeholders. Collaborative efforts between liaison librarians and collection management departments are increasingly necessary as libraries work to support research, teaching, and learning with fewer resources. This article will focus on the venues and the mechanisms that facilitate a culture of librarians sharing information across departments about financial realities within the libraries and the university to promote cooperative decision-making …

Stay Calm And Cover Your Assessment: Creating A Culture Of Assessment On A Shoestring, Audrey Powers, Susan Silver, Matthew C. Torrence

Charleston Library Conference

Academic libraries engage in assessment for a variety of reasons. Improving processes, responding to customer needs, fulfilling accreditation reporting requirements, and demonstrating impact and value to the institution are just a few. Many academic libraries find themselves in the position of being required to prove they are fulfilling a mission that contributes to the academic success of students and their value to the institution. Assessment is no longer a choice for libraries—it has become an expectation. Although most libraries are already doing some form of assessment, there seems to be little effort in many institutions to build a culture of …

An Electronic Resources Workflow Is Worth A Thousand Words, Christine Davidian, Lauren Orner

Charleston Library Conference

The processes involved in managing electronic resources are complex. They are becoming even more so with the addition of streaming media, demand-driven acquisitions (DDA), evidence-based subscriptions, weeding, and unanticipated changes. Rowan University’s electronic resources group recently documented its electronic resource management workflows in order to a) communicate complex processes to a diverse group of library stakeholders such as reference and instruction librarians, collection development professionals, acquisitions, and technology and systems staff; b) provide guidelines to train new employees; and c) to establish a record of current processes for future reference, evaluation, and revision of workflows. This poster session shows how …

Lifting All Boats: Fostering A Community Of Practice For Student Publishers, Laura Leichum, Kate Dohe, Gillian Berchowitz, Marc Blanc

Charleston Library Conference

Undergraduate and graduate students are increasingly being encouraged to work with faculty and researchers to generate traditional scholarship, as well as other types of projects that feature original content. Through this process, students are more frequently taking on roles as researchers, authors, and publishers. Student scholarship and student-run publications are valuable to the scholarly record, representing the nascent activities of the next generation of scholars, but also serving as an academic playground for emergent forms of publishing and media. Furthermore, students who manage publications gain practical skills that transfer to a variety of careers in academia and private industry. However, …

Project Management Office To The Rescue: Aligning Workforce And Resources With Library Vision And Delivering Results, Anastasia Guimaraes, Zheng (John) Wang

Charleston Library Conference

Many libraries today are inundated with increasing number of tasks, projects, and initiatives through which they hope to achieve their mission and strategic vision only to find themselves losing focus and drowning in the volume of work. Hesburgh Libraries at the University of Notre Dame struggled with absorbing an exponentially growing number of projects and aligning them with institutional strategic initiatives and goals. The increasing number of projects and the relatively stable size of the workforce significantly impacted the institution’s ability to complete projects in a timely fashion and within the budgetary allocation.

Catching Their Attention! Using Nonformal Information Sources To Captivate And Motivate Undergraduates During Library Sessions, Jacqueline Howell Nash

Charleston Library Conference

Students at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica are required to complete a course on research and writing for academic purposes. Students are scheduled to visit the library for a hands-on session in the library’s computer laboratory. How can we motivate them to acquire the research skills required in academia? We must first capture their immediate attention and then encourage their academic curiosity. How can we stimulate them to become information detectives? What are the nonacademic sources of information that have impacted the lives of Caribbean students prior to arrival at university? It wasn’t the journals or scholarly …

Improving Student Success: Arkansas State’S Partnership With Credo And Regional High Schools, Jeff Bailey, April Sheppard, Ian Singer

Charleston Library Conference

In this “out of the box” session, two librarians from Arkansas State University (A-State) and Credo’s chief content officer discussed their innovative collaboration in which A-State and Credo are working together to bring information literacy resources and instruction to local high schools in support of college readiness.

The session covered several issues, including how the library engaged and garnered administrative support, the challenges in establishing meaningful partnerships with local high schools, and developing and tracking the right metrics to validate progress. Topics of discussion included ways in which the library is working to do more to enhance its strategic importance …

Scholarly Needs For Text Analysis Resources: A User Assessment Study For The Hathitrust Research Center, Harriett E. Green, Eleanor F. Dickson, Leanne R. Nay, Ewa Zegler-Poleska

Charleston Library Conference

The HathiTrust Research Center (HTRC) is undertaking a study to better understand the needs of current and potential users of the center’s tools and services for computational text analysis. In this paper, we report on the results of the first phase of the study, which consisted of interviews with scholars, administrators, and librarians whose work involves text data mining. Our study reveals that text analysis workflows are specific to the individual research project and are often nonlinear. In spite of, and in some cases because of, the wealth of textual data available, scholars find it most difficult to locate, access, …

The Odd Couple: Teaming Up To Reduce Textbook Costs For Students, Teresa C. Hazen, Niamh A. Wallace

Charleston Library Conference

Since 2012, The University of Arizona (UA) Libraries have partnered with the UA BookStores to identify and make available e-book versions of required course materials accessible through the campus course management system and the BookStores’ website. These e-books have multi- or unlimited use licenses and are available at no cost to students. In advance of each semester, these two stakeholder groups work in partnership to acquire, make discoverable, and promote this service to faculty and students in a variety of ways.

With the maturity of our partnership and of this service to faculty and students, the UA Libraries are investigating …

We’Re On A Roll: Transforming E-Book Acquisitions In A Shifting Budget Landscape, Sheldon D. Armstrong, Ellen E. George, Arielle R. Lomness, Sally J. Taylor

Charleston Library Conference

In response to the challenging budget landscape in 2015–2016, the University of British Columbia Library took a new approach to e-book acquisitions. The Associate University Librarian, Collections, established a working group with a mandate to develop and implement a strategy for library-wide e-book purchasing. Members of the group were drawn from both campuses and represented public and technical services and a broad spectrum of disciplines. In this presentation, we will briefly review the factors that led to the formation of the working group, then discuss the steps taken in the analysis, selection, and purchase of e-books. The committee’s two-pronged approach—the …

Ordering E-Books From A Print Book Vendor, Jennifer R. Culley, Cindy Human

Charleston Library Conference

The University of Southern Mississippi began ordering e-books through its primary print book vendor, Midwest Library Service, in 2016. The demand to purchase e-books has steadily increased, and when the opportunity arose to save valuable staff time searching over several vendor sites for e-books and print books by consolidating the search interface, a change was made. There were multiple steps to set up this program; however, the time invested was worth it. While there were challenges along the way, the program is up and running, and there have been many benefits in addition to the staff time savings.

Post-Acquisition Management And The Issue Of Inaccessibility, Beth Caruso

Charleston Library Conference

Though advocates are calling for publishers to develop born-accessible e-books to comply with Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Digital Accessible Information System (DAISY) standards and the EPUB 3.0 measures now backed by the Society for Disability Studies, the realistic timespan for this achievement to become standard practice is far from ideal. To equitably serve users with disabilities, stronger technology and a mindset toward accessibility must become the standard in electronic collections. Librarians are expected to have a strong working knowledge of the library’s collections but receive little training in best practices for assisting patrons with disabilities. We cannot wait …

Nobody Knows And Nobody Is Responsible: Issues In E-Books Workflow And Access, Tina M. Adams, Paromita Biswas

Charleston Library Conference

Hunter Library at Western Carolina University is a midsized academic institution managing 10 large e-book packages and about 80,000 individual e-book titles. Managing e-books involves working with multiple vendors and staff from different areas of technical services. This paper examines issues in e-book workflows; in particular, we will share the results of a project to document our e-book workflows and utilize an existing technology, Microsoft SharePoint, to better manage this workflow and share information and communication among staff involved in this process. The idea for this project came with the almost simultaneous hiring of the electronic resources librarian and the …

Open Access, Open Access, How Does Your Catalog Grow? With Selection, Access, And Usage All In A Virtual Row!, David W. Schuster, Susan J. Martin

Charleston Library Conference

Much of the open access (OA) focus and discussion has been on journals (think Glossa), but the open access monograph has come fully into its own. University and scholarly publishers are providing high-quality books, often in areas that rely on long-form scholarship. However, open access monographs presented a challenge. How do they fit into the traditional models of selection, acquisition, cataloging, and tracking usage?

In the spring of 2016, Texas Woman’s University Libraries created a simple workflow to make open access monographs accessible through the libraries’ discovery layer using Google Sheets to track the workflow and EZproxy to track usage.