Intended and Unintended Consequences of a Publish-or-Perish Culture: A Worldwide Survey

How does publication pressure in modern-day universities affect the intrinsic and extrinsic rewards in science? By using a worldwide survey among demographers in developed and developing countries, we show that the large majority perceive the publication pressure as high, but more so in Anglo-Saxon countries and to a lesser extent in Western Europe. However, scholars see both the pros (upward mobility) and cons (excessive publication and uncitedness, neglect of policy issues, etc.) of the so-called ‘publish-or-perish’ culture.

By measuring behavior in terms of reading and publishing, and perceived extrinsic rewards and stated intrinsic rewards of practicing science, it turns out that publication pressure negatively affects the orientation of demographers towards policy and knowledge of the population facts. There are no signs that the pressure affects reading and publishing outside the core discipline.

URL : http://ssrn.com/abstract=1983205

Step by step installation guide of a digital…

Step by step installation guide of a digital preservation infrastructure :

« The Ceris-CNR project of digital preservation infrastructure has been committed by Bess (Social Science Electronic Library of Piemonte) for years 2011-2012 sponsored by Compagnia di San Paolo of Turin. Ceris-CNR role is to handle all the post-scan of the digitalization, for this purpose it has deployed the software and server platforms of the repository and also the web portal for the presentation, research and consulting. This report is a guide of step by step followed to build the digital archive infrastructure. »

URL : http://hdl.handle.net/10760/16911

Benefits of Open Access to Scholarly Research for…

Benefits of Open Access to Scholarly Research for Voluntary and Charitable Sector Organisations :

« This study was carried out by The Office for Public Management (OPM) in partnership with the National Council of Voluntary Organisations (NCVO). We were commissioned in July 2011 by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) on behalf of the Open Access Implementation Group (OAIG) to conduct research into the benefits of open access (OA) to scholarly research outputs to voluntary and community sector (VCS) organisations. »

URL : http://ie-repository.jisc.ac.uk/576/

Benefits of Open Access to Scholarly Research to…

Benefits of Open Access to Scholarly Research to the Public Sector :

« The objective of this project was to synthesise and generate evidence on the benefits that Open Access to scholarly research outputs has generated to the public sector, and to provide case studies of organisations that have realised such benefits. The project considered the benefits of Open Access for researchers in public sector organisations. It did not aim to be comprehensive in its coverage of the public sector, as there are many organisations for which research is only a very small part of their activity, and has only very limited impact on their policies and decisions. We have also focused on Open Access to research articles, as these still make up the largest proportion of research outputs used in analysis, policy and decision-making: research data is becoming more important but is still nascent in its influence in the organisations we surveyed. These organisations in any case often generate their own data through commissioned surveys and other tools as their needs tend to be very specific. »

URL : http://ie-repository.jisc.ac.uk/575/

Usage and Impact of Controlled Vocabularies in a…

Usage and Impact of Controlled Vocabularies in a Subject Repository for Indexing and Retrieval :

« Since 2009, the German National Library for Economics (ZBW) supports both indexing and retrieval of Open Access scientific publications like working papers, postprint articles and conference papers by means of a terminology web service. This web service is based on concepts organized as a ‘Standard Thesaurus for Economics’ (STW), which is modelled and regularly published as Linked Open Data. Moreover, it is integrated into the institution’s subject repository for automatically suggesting appropriate key words while indexing and retrieving documents, and for automatically expanding search queries on demand to gain better search results. While this approach looks promising to augment ‘off the shelf’ repository software systems in a lightweight manner with a disciplinary profile, there is still significant uncertainty about the effective usage and impact of controlled terms in the realm of these systems. To cope with this, we analyze the repository’s logfiles to get evidence of search behaviour which is potentially influenced by auto suggestion and expansion of scientific terms derived from a discipline’s literature. »

URL : http://liber.library.uu.nl/publish/issues/2011-3_4/index.html?000555

Trends in Research Librarianship Literature A Social Network…

Trends in Research Librarianship Literature: A Social Network Analysis of Articles :

« The purpose of this article is to identify the bibliometric characteristics of research librarianship literature and to visualize relationships in research librarianship by means of social network analysis. It was found out that the majority (66%) of the articles had single authorship and College & Research Libraries is the prominent actor among the research librarianship journals. It was also observed that Peter Hernon is the most productive and cited author in the field. The findings of this study can be used by the research librarianship community to better understand their core literature. »

URL : http://liber.library.uu.nl/publish/issues/2011-3_4/index.html?000554

Fostering New Roles for Librarians Skills Set for…

Fostering New Roles for Librarians: Skills Set for Repository Managers — Results of a Survey in Italy :

« The open access movement in scholarly communication has grown considerably over the last ten years and it has driven an increase in the number of institutional repositories (IRs). New professional roles and skills had to be developed to secure effective IR management.

Collection developmente expertise and metadata curation are regarded as strategic roles for repositories and therefore it is only logical for the library and information community to take on the responsibility for managing these digital archives. However, it has become clear that traditional librarian skills do not suffice anymore to run successful repositories. A richer set of skills is needed, including management and communication skills, technical skills, and expertise with regard to access rights and preservation of digital content.

Referring to the work carried out by the SHERPA Project in the UK with regard to the skills set for repository staff, the authors performed a survey among repository managers in Italy to assess the educational and professional background of the repository managers and the skills set required to implement successful institutional repositories.

The survey findings show that the professional profile of the repository manager is a multiform and complex one. It requires cross-functional and highly specialised competencies. Italian repository managers are of the opinion that the skills required to promote the repository within the institution and those required to deal with copyright issues as the most essential skills repository managers should acquire and be trained for. Collection development and metadata expertise, familiarity with project management and expertise in repository workflow design are also highly rated. Technical skills are needed to deal with interoperability standards and protocols.

In Italy academic curricula do not meet the repository managers’ educational needs. Academic programmes should be developed to include communication, project management and team work skills and pay more attention to copyright issues. Until that time repository managers will have to spend a considerable part of their working lives on professional training and self-directed learning. »

URL : http://liber.library.uu.nl/publish/issues/2011-3_4/index.html?000553