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Big data et bibliothèques : traitement et analyse informatiques des collections numériques

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Cette étude s’attache à présenter sous quels aspects les collections numériques des bibliothèques relèvent des problématiques propres aux données massives, et en quoi les techniques de fouille de données (text and data mining) représentent désormais une nécessité pour l’appropriation par les chercheurs des résultats de la littérature scientifique.

Ce travail, qui met au centre de son propos les techniques de fouille de données comme moyens de maîtriser la masse documentaire, identifie trois problématiques distinctes concernant les bibliothèques numériques et ces dispositifs de lecture algorithmiques : sont ainsi abordées successivement les démarches à mettre en oeuvre pour aider les chercheurs à faire usage de ces nouvelles méthodes de lecture, puis l’emploi de techniques de fouille de données sur les collections pour constituer de nouvelles formes d’instruments de recherche, et enfin l’usage de la fouille pour assister le traitement documentaire.

L’étude se conclut sur le détail des questions juridiques soulevées actuellement par la fouille de données, en rapport avec le droit de la propriété intellectuelle.

URL : Big data et bibliothèques : traitement et analyse informatiques des collections numériques

Alternative location : http://www.enssib.fr/bibliotheque-numerique/notices/66017-big-data-et-bibliotheques-traitement-et-analyse-informatiques-des-collections-numeriques

EN

Open Access Temptations: Buyer Beware

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Backlash against « megapublishers” which began in mathematics a decade ago has led to an exponential growth in open access journals. Their increasing numbers and popularity notwithstanding, there is evidence that not all open access journals are legitimate.

The nature of the « gold open access » business model and increasing prevalence of « publish or perish » culture in academia has given rise to a dark underbelly in the world of scientific publishing which feeds off academics’ professional needs.

Many such « predatory publishers » and journals not only seem to originate out of India but also seem to have been patronized by academics in the country. This article is a cautionary note to early-career academics and administrators in India to be wary of this « wild west » of the internet and exercise due discretion when considering/ evaluating open-access journals for scholarly contributions.

URL : http://www.iimahd.ernet.in/assets/snippets/workingpaperpdf/10046630992016-03-49.pdf

EN

The Paradox of Privacy: Revisiting a Core Library Value in an Age of Big Data and Linked Data

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Protecting user privacy and confidentiality is fundamental to the ethics and practice of librarianship, and such protection constitutes one of eleven values in the American Library Association’s “Core Values of Librarianship” (2004).

This paper addresses the concerns of protecting privacy in the library as they relate to library users who are defining, exploring, and negotiating their sexual identities with the help of the library’s information, programming, and physical facilities.

In so doing, we enlist the aid of Garret Keizer, who, in Privacy (2012), articulates a fresh theory of the concept in light of American social life in the twenty-first century. Using Keizer’s theory, we examine these concerns within the context of the rise of big data systems and social media on the one hand, and linked data and new cataloging standards on the other.

In so doing, we suggest that linked data technologies, with their ability to lead searchers through self-directed, open inquiry, are superior to big data technologies in the navigation of the paradox between openness and secrecy.

In this way they offer a greater potential to support the needs of queer library users: lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, or questioning (LGBTQ).

URL : http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/library_trends/v064/64.3.campbell.html

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Advocating for Librarianship: The Discourses of Advocacy and Service in the Professional Identities of Librarians

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

A dedication to service is often cited as a hallmark of a profession. Service is included as one of eleven Core Values in the American Library Association’s “Core Values of Librarianship” (2004). For librarians, service includes helping people find information resources to meet their educational, recreational, and work needs.

Reporting findings from a larger study into the professional identity of librarians, this paper explores the centrality of service, with specific attention to how librarians advocate for their services and, ultimately, for librarianship.

Using a discourse analysis approach, this study examines the roles that Service as a Core Value and advocacy play in the construction of professional identity. Three different data sources were used: professional journals, e-mail discussion lists, and research interviews.

The data were analyzed for the discourses librarians use when describing librarians, librarianship, and professionalism and their connection to advocacy. When librarians advocate for the services they offer, they are in fact advocating for the value of the profession.

Discursively, speaking or writing about advocacy positioned librarians as active participants in their own identity formation. By making advocacy a central activity of the profession, librarians not only challenged others’ perception of librarianship, they challenged their own understanding as well.

URL : http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/library_trends/v064/64.3.hicks.html

EN

Democratic Potential of New Models of Scholarship and the Crisis of Control

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

This paper frames the serials crisis as a loss of control over libraries’ collections and development budgets. While libraries have always had to contend with budget constraints, for many the rising cost of serials has become prohibitive, impeding on scholarship itself as librarians are forced to cut journal subscriptions.

Open Access (OA) journals hold the potential to partially alleviate the crisis, but a lasting solution might lie in altering expectations of scholars. Our critique of the dissemination of scholarly research looks to both Marxian economic theory and later critical theory, but finds both inadequate for a pragmatic solution to the crisis; instead, we adopt Deweyan democratic theory to argue in favour of public scholarship aided by librarians and vetted by scholarly societies.

URL : Democratic Potential of New Models of Scholarship and the Crisis of Control

Alternative location : http://www.mediatropes.com/index.php/Mediatropes/article/view/26418

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Big Publishers, Bigger Profits: How the Scholarly Community Lost the Control of its Journals

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Despite holding the potential to liberate scholarly information, the digital era has, to the contrary, increased the control of a few for-profit publishers. While most journals in the print era were owned by academic institutions and scientific societies, the majority of scientific papers are currently published by five for-profit publishers, which often exhibit profit margins between 30%-40%.

This paper documents the evolution of this consolidation over the last 40 years, discusses the peculiar economics of scholarly publishing, and reflects upon the role of publishers in today’s academe.

URL : Big Publishers, Bigger Profits: How the Scholarly Community Lost the Control of its Journals

Alternative location : http://www.mediatropes.com/index.php/Mediatropes/article/view/26422

EN

Back to the past: on the shoulders of an academic search engine giant

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

A study released by the Google Scholar team found an apparently increasing fraction of citations to old articles from studies published in the last 24 years (1990-2013). To demonstrate this finding we conducted a complementary study using a different data source (Journal Citation Reports), metric (aggregate cited half-life), time spam (2003-2013), and set of categories (53 Social Science subject categories and 167 Science subject categories).

Although the results obtained confirm and reinforce the previous findings, the possible causes of this phenomenon keep unclear. We finally hypothesize that first page results syndrome in conjunction with the fact that Google Scholar favours the most cited documents are suggesting the growing trend of citing old documents is partly caused by Google Scholar.

URL : http://arxiv.org/abs/1603.09111