Scholarly Communication Commons^™

Copyright First Responders: Decentralized Expertise, Cultural Institutions, And Risk, Kyle K. Courtney, Emily Kilcer

University Libraries Faculty Scholarship

Today librarians and other information professionals regularly intersect with intellectual property law. As our work increasingly encompasses copyright-intensive programs and projects (e.g., digitization, scholarly publishing, open access, streaming media, MOOCs, and more), questions about fair use, public domain, and copyright law invariably emerge. Libraries occupy a liminal space, they both serve knowledge creation and information access and enjoy special privileges under copyright law.

Unfortunately, comprehensive copyright training is still not a pillar of LIS programs,1 and while there are seminal resources to look to and professional development opportunities to explore (e.g., MOOCs, copyright bootcamps, or one-offs at conferences), this sort …

Forging The Future: Connecting Research To Communities, Angela Hackstadt

University Libraries Faculty Scholarship

Lightning talk delivered at the ACRL 2023 Conference in Pittsburgh, PA.

The literature suggests that information users beyond the academy rely on a variety of sources in the course of their work, most of which can be described as grey literature. However, academic researchers tend to focus their efforts on other research publications, like peer reviewed journal articles, because there is little perceived professional benefit to producing grey literature. A 2022 survey of state government and local nonprofit workers sheds some light on the gap between academic researchers and a potential audience for their work and illustrates the potential for …

Connecting Research To Policy And Practice: A Case Study Of A White Paper Collection In An Institutional Repository, Angela Hackstadt

University Libraries Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Reflections On Moving On And Scaling Up: Adapting Past Experience To Emerging Scholarly Communication Programs, Emily Kilcer, Julia Lovett, Mark Clemente

University Libraries Faculty Scholarship

Scholarly communication librarianship is always evolving. It is inherently malleable and context-dependent. Relevant skills can be challenging to learn in most LIS programs.

As a result, the experiences that shaped our early careers in scholarly communication were essential. Time at institutions with well-resourced, well-established, and highly visible scholarly communication programs, at MIT, Harvard, and the University of Michigan, showed us what was possible with a team working toward shared goals: where to look for opportunities, how to engage in strategic decision-making, when to keep nudging, and when to back-burner an effort.

An interesting shift we have each navigated is what …

Beyond The Academy: Connecting Research And Policy, Angela Hackstadt

University Libraries Faculty Scholarship

In April 2021, members of New York State Covid-19 and Minority Health Disparities Engaged Researchers Working Group began contributing a series of white papers to a collection in Scholars Archive, University at Albany's institutional repository. This poster reports on the reach of that collection after one year. The literature suggests that information users beyond the academy rely on a variety of sources in the course of their work, most of which can be described as grey literature. The poster will also present preliminary data collected from information users in the nonprofit and government sectors of New York State. It illustrates …

Design Thinking Repository Services: ​ Lessons Learned From Ualbany’S Covid-19 And Minority Health Disparities In Nys Collection And Scholars Archive, Emily Kilcer, Lindsay Van Berkom

University Libraries Faculty Scholarship

In April 2020, the University at Albany was commissioned to study the factors causing disproportionate harm from COVID-19 for New York Latinx and Black individuals. Thirty-five interdisciplinary UAlbany Engaged Researchers partnered with colleagues and community organizations to research solutions to these disparities.

The UAlbany Libraries’ Scholarly Communication Team recognized the opportunity to collect, preserve, and distribute this Minority Health Disparities (MHD) project’s assets from the University’s repository, Scholars Archive.

Following early conversations with the project lead, an expert in digital government, the author successfully demonstrated the repository’s value. With her support, and with a design thinking approach, the authors …

Beyond The Academy: Readership And Impact Of A White Paper Collection, Angela Hackstadt

University Libraries Faculty Scholarship

In April 2021, members of the NYS Covid-19 and Minority Health Disparities Engaged Researchers Working Group began contributing a series of white papers to a collection in Scholars Archive, University at Albany's institutional repository. This poster reports on the reach of that collection after one year and illustrates the potential for community-focused research published outside of traditional channels.

How Libraries Help Make Your Data Management As Easy As Pie, Jill Cofield, Carol Anne Germain, Lauren Puzier, Emily Kilcer

University Libraries Faculty Scholarship

Academic libraries at Association of Research Libraries (ARL) & Carnegie R1 universities in the U.S. and Canada provide leadership to deliver comprehensive integrated Web-based data management services for faculty, graduate students, and researchers. Data management makes data more findable, usable, and reproducible; supports an ethical, responsible research environment; and meets funder and journal data-sharing requirements. Since the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy’s 2013 memorandum requiring federal agencies to increase public access to the results of federally funded research, many funders and journals have mandated data planning and sharing. Developing high quality data management plans take time and …

Hang On To Your Rights (Author Rights!): A Survey Of Author Rights Services On Library Websites, Lauren Puzier, Emily Kilcer, Carol Anne Germain

University Libraries Faculty Scholarship

Author rights underpin many scholarly communication activities. For authors to openly distribute their work, and thereby enjoy great reach and impact, retaining the rights necessary to do so is essential. However, author rights may not be something familiar to authors. In cases where an author is working with a publisher who may not be supportive of these rights by default, they may not feel confident advocating on their own behalf. Libraries are well positioned to provide services that inform and support authors in efforts to retain their rights. In doing so, libraries can additionally nurture a more sustainable scholarly ecosystem. …

Building Synergy Between The Institutional Repository And Scholarly Communication, Emily Kilcer, Lauren Puzier, Carol Anne Germain

University Libraries Faculty Scholarship

Institutional repositories remain a crucial tool for promoting, displaying, and encouraging open access to scholarly research. Institutional repository webpages can help deliver pertinent information about scholarly communication to visitors and authors. Scholarly communication aims to promote a more open, equitable, and sustainable scholarly ecosystem. Building a coherent synergy between scholarly communication services and open distribution through an institution’s repository benefits the user community by facilitating an efficient and effective portal. Designing the institutional repository’s homepage with a clear connection to the scholarly communication presence offers a deeper investment in scholarly communication for its visitors. This study investigates the number of …

A Review Of Grey Literature Cited By Food Loss Law And Policy Scholarship, Angela Hackstadt

University Libraries Faculty Scholarship

In the United States, state and federal programs, rules, and legislation attempt to address the social, economic, and environmental impacts of food waste. Research on the efficacy of these interventions rely on a variety of grey literature resources. Grey literature is valuable to policy research but may be overlooked because it is not published commercially and is often deemed unauthoritative. This review focuses on the use of grey literature in food waste law and policy scholarship to identify the most used sources and to determine what, if any, archiving strategies authors use. Recommendations for librarians and researchers are discussed.

Authors Alliance Partner Program (A2p2) [Product Review], Emily Kilcer, Ann C. Kearney

University Libraries Faculty Scholarship

The Authors Alliance Partner Program (A2P2; https://www.authorsalliance.org/a2p2/) is a recent addition to the educational content from the Authors Alliance. This nonprofit advocacy organization aims “to advance the interests of authors who want to serve the public good by sharing their creations broadly.” And this new initiative provides prêt-à-porter instructional material with the express purpose of supporting the scaling of rights–related programming—a goal that distinguishes A2P2 from other well-established and deeply valuable copyright-focused resources (Authors Alliance, 2020). While copyright touches nearly all we do in libraries, outreach in this area can often fall to scholarly communication or copyright librarians. As …

Presenting At Conferences, Lauren Puzier

University Libraries Faculty Scholarship

This article discusses the process of creating and delivering presentations from developing a topic to technical considerations for librarians who are interested in presenting at conferences, webinars, or other professional venues.

Leadership, Development, And Expertise: A Qualitative Content Analysis Of Scholarly Communication Librarian Position Announcements, Angela Hackstadt

University Libraries Faculty Scholarship

In 2012, the Association of Research Libraries reported that 95% of libraries identified their libraries as leaders of scholarly communication efforts on campus. While academic librarians have long been responsible for SC issues, institutions have explicitly tasked positions with these responsibilities increasingly over time. This qualitative analysis of position announcements focuses on the ways libraries expect these librarians to engage with SC issues and responsibilities, rather than describing the prevalence of SC-related functions. Specifically, this study asks the following questions: (1) How do administrators communicate leadership expectations of SC librarian roles through job advertisements? (2) In what ways could these …

What Have We Learned Today? A Synthesis Of Cases Presented, Elaine M. Lasda

University Libraries Faculty Scholarship

Chapter Seven from the book, The New Metrics: Practical Assessment of Research Impact

Synthesizes the strengths, challenges, and opportunities for the five cases described in the book. Providing research impact services in specialized libraries and information centers presents many opportunities for both the library/information center and the greater organization. There is a need for continued advocacy for responsible use of research impact metrics.

A Brief History And Overview, Elaine M. Lasda

University Libraries Faculty Scholarship

Chapter One from the book, The New Metrics: Practical Assessment of Research Impact

Provides an introduction, background information and overview of bibliometrics. Describes the new contexts in which bibliometric indicators are being used in specialized situations, and introduces five case studies where such metrics are being used in new ways.

Dynamic Duos: Interrogating Latin American Curricula Through Faculty-Librarian Partnerships, Jesús Alonso-Regalado, Daniel Arbino, Pamela Espinosa De Los Monteros, Marisol Ramos, Christine Vassallo-Oby, Charles Venator-Santiago, Lisa Voigt

University Libraries Faculty Scholarship

The ever-changing education and information landscape has brought with it an increased focus on teaching pedagogy and curriculum design. In response, Latin American Studies faculty are pursuing creative pedagogical directions and approaches in areas such as digital scholarship and information literacy in partnership with librarians and archivists. This roundtable will explore faculty-librarians practice-based initiatives focusing on issues related to the Global North and South. The uniqueness of this roundtable is that both the teaching faculty and the librarian representing each academic institution will be present. The University at Albany will discuss the redesign of a Latin American, Caribbean, and U.S. …

404 Reasons To Use Perma.Cc, Angela Hackstadt

University Libraries Faculty Scholarship

A 2013 study found that 70% of URLs in law journal articles and 50% of URLs cited by U.S. Supreme Court cases had suffered from reference rot and additional studies have demonstrated that reference rot increases over time. Information published online by government agencies is not immune to this phenomena. One startling example is the removal of climate change information from the Environmental Protection Agency's website. Perma.cc is a service developed by the Harvard Innovation Lab to preserve web-based content cited by scholars and the courts. Unlike archiving techniques that rely on random captures of web content, Perma.cc creates a …

Food Waste Legislation Scholarship: A Mapping Study, Angela Hackstadt

University Libraries Faculty Scholarship

The purpose of this study is to examine research activity on food waste legislation published in law journals to identify top sources and experts cited by recent scholarship. Searches for "food loss" and "food waste" were conducted in three legal research databases for law journal articles published between January 2013 and January 2018. The core list of selected articles consists of 13 law journal articles. The citations from each of the core articles were collected to form a database, which was analyzed to determine what kinds of resources legal scholars rely on when conducting research in food waste legislation. Government …

If You Build It, Will They Come? Collateral Benefits Of Changing Strategies To Facilitate Faculty Participation In A Campus Ir, Lindsay Van Berkom, Elaine M. Lasda Bergman

University Libraries Faculty Scholarship

In October, 2014, the University at Albany Libraries launched Scholars Archive (SA), the University’s Institutional Repository (IR). Our first year of trial and error generated mixed results and low participation by non-library faculty. In year two, we redeveloped our strategy to yield benefits beyond simply increasing repository content. The new approach has three prongs: targeting outreach to deans, department heads and campus wide meetings instead of targeting to individual faculty members; second, we now provide a “full service” model for submitting content instead of merely mediating a “self-service” workflow model; third, we strategically highlight the IR platform’s available metrics to …

Finding Citations To Social Work Literature: The Relative Benefits Of Using Web Of Science, Scopus, Or Google Scholar, Elaine M. Lasda Bergman

University Libraries Faculty Scholarship

Past studies of citation coverage of Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar do not demonstrate a consistent pattern that can be applied to the interdisciplinary mix of resources used in social work research. To determine the utility of these tools to social work researchers, an analysis of citing references to well-known social work journals was conducted. Web of Science had the fewest citing references and almost no variety in source format. Scopus provided higher citation counts, but the pattern of coverage was similar toWeb of Science. Google Scholar provided substantially more citing references, but only …

Social Gerontology- Integrative And Territorial Aspects: A Citation Analysis Of Subject Scatter And Database Coverage, Elaine M. Lasda Bergman

University Libraries Faculty Scholarship

To determine the mix of resources used in social gerontology research, a citation analysis was conducted. A representative sample of citations was selected from three prominent gerontology journals and information was added to determine subject scatter and database coverage for the cited materials. Results indicate that a significant portion of gerontology research, even from a social science perspective, relies roughly equally on medical resources as it does social science resources. Furthermore, there is a small but defined core of literature constituting scholarly “territory” unique to gerontology. Analysis of database indexing indicated that broad, interdisciplinary databases provide more comprehensive coverage of …

Web Citation Availability: A Follow-Up Study, Mary F. Casserly, James E. Bird

University Libraries Faculty Scholarship

The researchers report on a study to examine the persistence of Web-based content. In 2002, a sample of 500 citations to Internet resources from articles published in library and information science journals in 1999 and 2000 were analyzed by citation characteristics and searched to determine cited content persistence, availability on the Web, and availability in the Internet Archive. Statistical analyses were conducted to identify citation characteristics associated with availability. The sample URLs were searched again between August 2005 and June 2006 to determine persistence, availability on the Web, and in the Internet Archive. As in the original study, the researchers …

Research In Academic Library Collection Management, Mary F. Casserly

University Libraries Faculty Scholarship

This chapter describes the empirical quantitative and qualitative research and case studies pertaining to collection management practice in academic libraries published between 1990 and 2007. The topics covered include collection size and growth, material cost, library expenditures, budgets and budgeting, collection development policies, collection composition, organization and staffing for collection management, selection, and the evaluation of the collection development process and the collection itself. The chapter identifies the most influential and useful studies and the most active areas of research. The collection management research literature was limited in the methodologies employed (surveys and case studies), statistical analyses applied (basic and …

Web Citation Availability: Analysis And Implictions For Scholarship, Mary F. Casserly, James E. Bird

University Libraries Faculty Scholarship

Five hundred citations to Internet resources from articles published in library and information science journals in 1999 and 2000 were profiled and searched on the Web. The majority contained partial bibliographic information and no date viewed. Most URLs pointed to content pages with "edu" or "org" domains and did not include a tilde. More than half (56.4%) were permanent, 81.4 percent were available on the Web, and searching the Internet Archive increased the availability rate to 89.2 percent. Content, domain, and directory depth were associated with availability. Few of the journals provided instruction on citing digital resources. Eight suggestions for …