How Digital Are the Digital Humanities? An Analysis of Two Scholarly Blogging Platforms

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“In this paper we compare two academic networking platforms, HASTAC and Hypotheses, to show the distinct ways in which they serve specific communities in the Digital Humanities (DH) in different national and disciplinary contexts. After providing background information on both platforms, we apply co-word analysis and topic modeling to show thematic similarities and differences between the two sites, focusing particularly on how they frame DH as a new paradigm in humanities research. We encounter a much higher ratio of posts using humanities-related terms compared to their digital counterparts, suggesting a one-way dependency of digital humanities-related terms on the corresponding unprefixed labels. The results also show that the terms digital archive, digital literacy, and digital pedagogy are relatively independent from the respective unprefixed terms, and that digital publishing, digital libraries, and digital media show considerable cross-pollination between the specialization and the general noun. The topic modeling reproduces these findings and reveals further differences between the two platforms. Our findings also indicate local differences in how the emerging field of DH is conceptualized and show dynamic topical shifts inside these respective contexts.”

URL : https://microblogging.infodocs.eu/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/journal.pone.0115035.pdf

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0115035

What makes us a community: structure, correlations, and success in scientific world

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“We explore the statistical structure of scientific community based on multivariate analysis of publication (or other identifiable metrics) distribution in the author space. Here, we define community based on keywords, i.e. projecting semantic content of the documents on predefined meanings; however, more complex approaches based on semantic clustering of publications are possible. Remarkably, this simple statistical analysis of publication metadata allows understanding of internal interactions with community in general agreement with experience acquired over decades of social interaction within it. We further discuss potential applications of this approach for ranking within the community, reviewer selection, and optimization of community output.”

URL : http://arxiv.org/abs/1502.03439

Les modes de communication de la recherche aujourd’hui : quel rôle pour les bibliothécaires ?

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“Le modèle des publications scientifiques, historiquement fondé sur l’article, semble être battu en brèche ces dernières années. Les échanges entre les chercheurs passent aujourd’hui par de multiples canaux, carnets de recherche, listes de diffusion, réseaux sociaux dédiés et grand public. L’identité numérique des chercheurs s’affirme d’année en année sur la Toile, générant de nouvelles visibilités hors des circuits de diffusion
traditionnels. Dans ce nouvel environnement réticulaire, tout à la fois laboratoire 2.0 et espace d’actualités et de débats, les bibliothèques pourraient jouer un rôle de premier plan. Sans se défaire de ses missions traditionnelles – archiver, signaler, collecter, elles peuvent les renouveler. Archiver ces nouvelles productions, travailler à leur identification pérenne ainsi qu’à celle de leurs auteurs, former à l’utilisation de ces outils sont autant de tâches pour les bibliothécaires.”

URL : https://microblogging.infodocs.eu/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/arenes2015.pdf

URL alternative : http://www.enssib.fr/bibliotheque-numerique/documents/65046-les-modes-de-communication-de-la-recherche-aujourd-hui-quel-role-pour-les-bibliothecaires.pdf

Cost Differentials between E-Books and Print in Academic Libraries

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“Academic libraries continue to face funding pressures compounded by the need to provide students with access to electronic resources, both in journal and book formats. With space constraints and the need to repurpose library space to other uses, libraries must carefully examine the move to e-only formats for books to determine if the format makes reasonable economic sense.

A survey conducted at Auburn University at Montgomery (AUM) has confirmed for academic libraries the work of Gray and Copeland on e-books being more expensive than print for public libraries. For AUM, the mean cost for an e-book is significantly higher than for the print counterpart of that title. The cost differentials between the two formats show e-books as being consistently higher than print in initial price. This consistency holds true across all LC classifications, regardless of whether or not the title is published by a university press or a commercial press.”

URL : http://crl.acrl.org/content/76/1/6.abstract

The Valuation of Unprotected Works: A Case Study of Public Domain Photographs on Wikipedia

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“What is the value of works in the public domain? We study the biographical Wikipedia pages of a large data set of authors, composers, and lyricists to determine whether the public domain status of available images leads to a higher rate of inclusion of illustrated supplementary material and whether such inclusion increases visitorship to individual pages. We attempt to objectively place a value on the body of public domain photographs and illustrations which are used in this global resource. We find that the most historically remote subjects are more likely to have images on their web pages because their biographical life-spans pre-date the existence of in-copyright imagery. We find that the large majority of photos and illustrations used on subject pages were obtained from the public domain, and we estimate their value in terms of costs saved to Wikipedia page builders and in terms of increased traffic corresponding to the inclusion of an image. Then, extrapolating from the characteristics of a random sample of a further 300 Wikipedia pages, we estimate a total value of public domain photographs on Wikipedia of between $246 to $270 million dollars per year.”

URL : http://ssrn.com/abstract=2560572

Les archives ouvertes institutionnelles universitaires : les professionnels de l’information et de la documentation à l’épreuve de la globalisation de l’Enseignement supérieur

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“Plus de vingt ans après le lancement de la première archive ouverte thématique ArXiv, il était nécessaire de replacer ce type de dispositif dans le contexte actuel de globalisation de l’Enseignement supérieur, afin de voir comment la voie verte de l’open access pouvait aujourd’hui s’inscrire dans les logiques institutionnelles et améliorer les stratégies de valorisation et de pilotage des universités françaises. A travers l’observation et l’étude du paysage des archives ouvertes institutionnelles universitaires, le présent travail se propose de montrer comment les missions traditionnelles des professionnels de l’information et de la documentation s’articulent avec ces enjeux stratégiques, au cours des projets menant à l’ouverture d’une plate-forme institutionnelle en libre accès. D’activités initialement basées sur la redistribution de ressources externes à l’institution vers l’intérieur de cette dernière, les professionnels de l’information-documentation sont amenés – sous l’impulsion du numérique et des outils qui en découlent, à l’image des archives ouvertes – à reconsidérer le versant communicationnel de leurs métiers et à pleinement participer à la diffusion des résultats de la recherche locale vers le reste de la communauté scientifique. Entre alternative au circuit éditorial scientifique, vitrine institutionnelle pour la recherche et outil de pilotage pour les gouvernances universitaires, les archives ouvertes placent aujourd’hui les professionnels de l’information et de la documentation au centre d’enjeux nouveaux, dépassant le cadre de leurs missions habituellement fondées sur l’accès aux documents.”

“More than twenty years after the launch of the first thematic open archive ArXiv, that was necessary to situate this kind of device in the current background of Higher education’s globalization, to see how the green road of open access could participate in the institutional logic and improve the strategies of valorisation and monitoring of the french universities. Through the observation and the study of the academic institutional repositories landscape, this work intends to show how the traditional missions of the information-documentation professionals are coordonate with this strategic issues during the projects driving to the launch of an institutional platform in open access. From activities based on the redistribution of external resources to the inside of the institution, the information-documentation professionals are brought – spurred on by the digital technologies and tools as the open archives – to reconsider the communication part of their professions and to take part of the diffusion of the local research findings to the rest of the scientific community. Between an alternative to the scientific editorial system, an institutional showcase for the research and a monitoring tool for the academic governances, the open archives put the information-documentation professionals at the centre of new issues, that go beyond the framework of their missions, usually found on the access to the documents.”

URL : Les archives ouvertes institutionnelles universitaires

Alternative URL : http://memsic.ccsd.cnrs.fr/mem_01109298

Scholarly E-book Across Disciplines: Content Analysis of Usage Reports and Search Terms

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“Data collected through COUNTER usage statistics and the LibQUAL+ service quality assessment survey tell us that faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates value access to the growing e-book collection at Columbia University Libraries (CUL). While the aggregate results indicate that e-book use continues to increase, usage rates are not uniform across disciplines. Anecdotal evidence suggests that while e-book use has grown in the sciences and social sciences, scholars in the arts and humanities rely heavily on print books. Given the highly diverse research needs of the university community, CUL is keen to understand scholarly e-book usage in various disciplines.

In this study, we sought an innovative research method to understand e-book usage. This method utilizes data from two sources: readers’ e -book search terms harvested by Google Analytics; and requested e-book titles provided by the COUNTER e-book usage reports. The data was analyzed using NVivo, a qualitative analysis software, to examine popular scholarly e-book topics and the correlation between search and delivery.”

URL : http://academicworks.cuny.edu/ols_proceedings_lac/4/