The Prevalence and Practices of Academic Library Journal…

The Prevalence and Practices of Academic Library Journal Clubs :

“An increasing number of references to journal clubs in library literature, and the recent creation of clubs at the authors’ institutions, sparked curiosity about how widespread journal clubs are in academic libraries. An online survey announced on library listservs assessed their prevalence and practices. Library journal clubs seem to be a relatively recent phenomenon, and are more widespread than previously thought, though not pervasive. Library journal clubs promote current awareness, analysis skills, group cohesion, and intra-library knowledge, and offer a low-cost professional development opportunity in times of budget difficulties. Practices that sustain journal clubs can maintain these benefits.”

URL : http://eprints.rclis.org/handle/10760/15531

Quel avenir pour les Archives de France …

Quel avenir pour les Archives de France ? :

“Dans le cadre du Conseil de modernisation des politiques publiques du 30 juin 2010, il a été décidé qu’« un pilotage interministériel des archives serait mis en place, associant tous les départements ministériels concernés et au premier chef les ministères chargés de la culture, de la défense et des affaires étrangères. L’enjeu de ce pilotage renforcé est non seulement de poursuivre la modernisation de la gestion des archives de l’Etat mais aussi de faciliter l’accès à ce patrimoine culturel inestimable et de le diffuser plus largement auprès des chercheurs et de nos concitoyens ». C’est dans ce contexte que M. Maurice Quénet, conseiller d’Etat, a été chargé par le Premier ministre d’étudier les modalités de mise en oeuvre de ce chantier. L’enjeu de la mission était d’apporter des réponses aux six questions suivantes : quelle est la situation actuelle en matière d’archives de l’Etat ? Quelle forme doit prendre l’instance de pilotage interministériel ? Comment optimiser la gestion des fonds d’archives par les différents ministères ? Comment créer une plate-forme interministérielle d’archivage numérique ? Comment créer un portail d’accès unifié aux ressources archivistiques numérisées ? Comment valoriser le patrimoine culturel que constituent les fonds d’archives ?”

URL : http://www.ladocumentationfrancaise.fr/rapports-publics/114000194/

Cross‐cultural analysis of the Wikipedia community This…

Cross‐cultural analysis of the Wikipedia community :

“This paper reports a cross‐cultural analysis of four Wikipedias in different languages and demonstrates their roles as communities of practice (CoPs). Prior research on CoPs and on the Wikipedia community often lacks cross‐cultural analysis. Despite the fact that over 75% of Wikipedia is written in languages other than English, research on Wikipedia primarily focuses on the English Wikipedia and tends to overlook the Wikipedias in other languages. This paper first argues that Wikipedia communities can be analyzed and understood as CoPs. Second, norms of behaviors are examined in four Wikipedia languages (English, Hebrew, Japanese, and Malay), and the similarities and differences across these four languages are reported. Specifically, typical behaviors on three types of discussion spaces (Talk, User Talk, and Wikipedia Talk) are identified and examined across languages. Hofstede’s dimensions of cultural diversity as well as the size of the community, and the function of each discussion area provide lenses for understanding the similarities and differences. As such, this paper expands the research on online CoPs through an examination of cultural variations across multiple CoPs, and increases our understanding of Wikipedia communities in various languages.”

URL : http://eprints.rclis.org/handle/10760/15529

Beyond vandalism Wikipedia trolls Research on trolls…

Beyond vandalism: Wikipedia trolls :

“Research on trolls is scarce, but their activities challenge online communities; one of the main challenges of the Wikipedia community is to fight against vandalism and trolls. This study identifies Wikipedia trolls’ behaviours and motivations, and compares and contrasts hackers with trolls; it extends our knowledge about this type of vandalism and concludes that Wikipedia trolls are one type of hacker. This study reports that boredom, attention seeking, and revenge motivate trolls; they regard Wikipedia as an entertainment venue, and find pleasure from causing damage to the community and other people. Findings also suggest that trolls’ behaviours are characterized as repetitive, intentional, and harmful actions that are undertaken in isolation and under hidden virtual identities, involving violations of Wikipedia policies, and consisting of destructive participation in the community.”

URL : http://eprints.rclis.org/handle/10760/15530

Journal tendering for societies: a brief guide

Hundreds of societies publish journals in collaboration with publishers. Some may be considering how and whether to renegotiate or go out to tender. Some may be considering whether they can/should/wish to change the business model of the journal (e.g. by a move to Open Access). Other societies may be considering using an external publisher for the first time.

This guide, based on our experience, is written for all of these. In their negotiations with publishers learned societies – especially smaller ones – may have difficulty articulating their requirements and assessing the publishers’ offerings. This is true where they wish to compare the newer models with typical “conventional” models, or simply compare different conventional offerings.

The reasons are complex and include:

  • lack of knowledge of the publishing industry on the part of the society’s executive staff (who cannot always find the time to acquire the knowledge);
  • the “author/research funder pays” models, which, whilst becoming more prevalent in the domains of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), appear (but may not actually be) rather less feasible in other domains.

This guide draws on the experience of one learned society, the Association for Learning Technology (ALT), in reviewing the publishing arrangements for its journal Research in Learning Technology, between September and December 2010.

URL : http://repository.alt.ac.uk/887/