Étiquette : academic libraries

Developing a Business Plan for a Library Publishing Program

Authors : Kate McCready, Emma Molls

Over the last twenty years, library publishing has emerged in higher education as a new class of publisher. Conceived as a response to commercial publishing practices that have strained library budgets and prevented scholars from openly licensing and sharing their works, library publishing is both a local service program and a broader movement to disrupt the current scholarly publishing arena.

It is growing both in numbers of publishers and numbers of works produced. The commercial publishing framework which determines the viability of monetizing a product is not necessarily applicable for library publishers who exist as a common good to address the needs of their academic communities.

Like any business venture, however, library publishers must develop a clear service model and business plan in order to create shared expectations for funding streams, quality markers, as well as technical and staff capacity.

As the field is maturing from experimental projects to full programs, library publishers are formalizing their offerings and limitations.

The anatomy of a library publishing business plan is presented and includes the principles of the program, scope of services, and staffing requirements. Other aspects include production policies, financial structures, and measures of success.

URL : Developing a Business Plan for a Library Publishing Program

DOI : https://doi.org/10.3390/publications6040042

Software Curation in Research Libraries: Practice and Promise

Authors : Alexandra Chassanoff, Yasmin AlNoamany, Katherine Thornton, John Borghi

INTRODUCTION

Research software plays an increasingly vital role in the scholarly record. Academic research libraries are in the early stages of exploring strategies for curating and preserving research software, aiming to facilitate support and services for long-term access and use.

DESCRIPTION OF PROGRAM

In 2016, the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) began offering postdoctoral fellowships in software curation. Four institutions hosted the initial cohort of software curation fellows.

This article describes the work activities and research program of the cohort, highlighting the challenges and benefits of doing this exploratory work in research libraries.

NEXT STEPS

Academic research libraries are poised to play an important role in research and development around robust services for software curation. The next cohort of CLIR fellows is set to begin in fall 2018 and will likely shape and contribute substantially to an emergent research agenda.

URL : Software Curation in Research Libraries: Practice and Promise

DOI : https://doi.org/10.7710/2162-3309.2239

Opening Science with Institutional Repository: A Case Study of Vilnius University Library

Authors : Jūratė Kuprienė, Žibutė Petrauskien

The future strategies for opening science have become important to libraries which serve scientific institutions by providing institutional repository infrastructures and services.

Vilnius University Library provides such an infrastructure for Vilnius University, which is the biggest higher education institution in Lithuania (with more than 20,200 students, 1,330 academic staff members, and 450 researchers ), and manages services and infrastructure of the national open access repository eLABa and the national open access data archive MIDAS.

As the new platforms of these repositories began operating in the beginning of 2015, new policies and routines for organizing work with scientific publications and data had to be implemented.

This meant new roles for the Library and librarians, too. The University Senate approved the new Regulations of the Library on 13 June 2017 with the task to develop the scholarly communication tools dedicated to sustaining open access to information and open science.

Thus, Vilnius University Library performs the leading role in opening science by providing strategic insights and solutions for development of services dedicated to researchers, students and the public in Lithuania.

As it was not presented properly at the international level before, this article presents the case of Vilnius University Library which actively cooperates with other Lithuanian academic institutions, works in creating and coordinating policies, conducts research on the improvements and services of eLABa and MIDAS, and suggests and implements the integral solutions for opening science.

URL : Opening Science with Institutional Repository: A Case Study of Vilnius University Library

DOI : http://doi.org/10.18352/lq.10217

Research cafés: how libraries can build communities through research and engagement

Author : Katherine Stephan

The Research Support Team at Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU) runs events called research cafés throughout the academic year.

During these cafés, we bring together PhD students, early career researchers and more established academics over lunch to give them an opportunity to talk about their work to a lay audience of their peers and the public.

From its inception in 2013 we have maintained the overall format of the research café, based as it is on promoting interdisciplinary dialogue in an informal setting, while also making a few small but significant changes.

These changes have in turn increased the visibility and reach of research promotion within the Library. Against that backdrop, this article – which is based on a lightning talk and poster session presented at the 41st UKSG Annual Conference, Glasgow, in April 2018 – will outline why the library is ideally placed to facilitate this type of scholarship sharing and why research and community engagement should be viewed as an integral part of a university library’s agenda.

It will also discuss how its success has allowed our Team to work in partnership with colleagues from across the University in new and exciting ways. Finally, it will address what further developments we can make to continue to improve and help the research community at LJMU and beyond.

URL : Research cafés: how libraries can build communities through research and engagement

DOI : http://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.436

Enhancing scholarly communication through institutional repositories: salient issues and strategies by libraries in Nigeria

Author : Ngozi B. Ukachi

The place of institutional repositories in enhancing scholarly communication is becoming obvious as academic institutions are embracing this activity which among many other key roles, enables wider circulation of research outputs of institutions.

This study is concentrated on establishing the strategies and models adopted by libraries in Nigeria in ensuring that their institutional repositories effectively enhance scholarly communication. The descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study while the purposive sampling technique was employed in selecting libraries that have institutional repositories.

Questionnaire complemented with oral interview were the instruments used for data collection. Data collected was analysed using SPSS software. The outcome revealed that the two most prevailing activities carried out by the libraries in modelling their institutional repositories for enhanced scholarly communication are; digitization of scholarly contents in printed format and allowing self- archiving of research outputs of members of staff.

Announcing and publicizing their contents through the library website is the main strategy adopted by the libraries in promoting their institutional repositories for enhanced scholarly communication revealed.

Challenges encountered include; issues with legal framework/ intellectual property right, difficulty in content recruitment, etc.

The study concluded by recommending among others that the library management should expose members of staff in-charge of content upload to trainings in the area of copyright law, put in place a submission policy that will compel members of staff to submit their research outputs to the repository and, establish a reward system to academic members of staff who submit their works to the institutional repository.

URL : Enhancing scholarly communication through institutional repositories: salient issues and strategies by libraries in Nigeria

Alternative location : http://library.ifla.org/id/eprint/2268

Scholarly Communication Librarians’ Relationship with Research Impact Indicators: An Analysis of a National Survey of Academic Librarians in the United States

Authors: Rachel Ann Miles, Stacy Konkiel, Sarah Sutton

INTRODUCTION

Academic librarians, especially in the field of scholarly communication, are often expected to understand and engage with research impact indicators. However, much of the current literature speculates about how academic librarians are using and implementing research impact indicators in their practice.

METHODS

This study analyzed the results from a 2015 survey administered to over 13,000 academic librarians at Carnegie-classified R1 institutions in the United States. The survey concentrated on academic librarians’ familiarity with and usage of research impact indicators.

RESULTS

This study uncovered findings related to academic librarians’ various levels of familiarity with research impact indicators and how they implement and use research impact indicators in their professional development and in their library job duties.

DISCUSSION

In general, academic librarians with regular scholarly communication support duties tend to have higher levels of familiarity of research impact indicators. In general, academic librarians are most familiar with the citation counts and usage statistics and least familiar with altmetrics.

During consultations with faculty, the Journal Impact Factor (JIF) and citation counts are more likely to be addressed than the author h-index, altmetrics, qualitative measures, and expert peer reviews.

The survey results also hint towards a growing interest in altmetrics among academic librarians for their professional advancement.

CONCLUSION

Academic librarians are continually challenged to keep pace with the changing landscape of research impact metrics and research assessment models. By keeping pace and implementing research impact indicators in their own practices, academic librarians can provide a crucial service to the wider academic community.

URL : Scholarly Communication Librarians’ Relationship with Research Impact Indicators: An Analysis of a National Survey of Academic Librarians in the United States

DOI : http://doi.org/10.7710/2162-3309.2212

Health science libraries in Sweden: new directions, expanding roles

Authors : Lotta Haglund, Annikki Roos, Petra Wallgren-Björk

Librarians in Sweden are facing huge challenges in meeting the demands of their organisations and users. This article looks at four key areas: coping with open science/open access initiatives; increasing demands from researchers for support doing systematic reviews; understanding user experiences in Swedish health science libraries; and the consequences of expanding roles for recruitment and continuing professional development.

With regard to changing roles, there is an increasing shift from the generalist towards the expert role. The authors raise the issue as to how to prepare those new to the profession to the changing environment of health science libraries.

URL : Health science libraries in Sweden: new directions, expanding roles

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1111/hir.12229