Archives des mots-clés : academic libraries

Are there birds in the library? The extent of Twitter adoption and use by Canadian academic libraries

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“Twitter, only eight years old, has emerged as an ever-present component of our everyday, online lives. This phenomenon is apparent in academic libraries as well, with a growing body of published reports on how libraries use Twitter, and other social networking tools, to engage with users. The extent of this adoption by libraries, however, is assumed rather than known, leading to the question: is it really a phenomenon? How many academic libraries are actually currently tweeting? In this paper, we report an investigation of Twitter adoption by Canadian academic libraries. We found that less than half of the main libraries currently tweet, with adoption peaking in 2009. While tweeting is not as ubiquitous as may be assumed and recent adoption has declined, findings do show that tweeting remains consistent and active for those libraries with established Twitter accounts.”

URL : http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/4945

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and Their Impact on Academic Library Services: Exploring the Issues and Challenges

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“2012 was a year of rapid change for education with the advent of MOOCs—Massive Open Online Courses—available for the world to use to learn for free. But what does this mean for the role of the librarian? How has the landscape in education changed, and what are the issues and challenges that librarians now face? This article reviews the position of libraries in the emergence of MOOCs and the role that a librarian could undertake within the research, production, and presentation of MOOCs.”

URL : http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13614533.2013.851609

Don’t Fear the Reader: Librarian versus Interlibrary Loan Patron-Driven Acquisition of Print Books at an Academic Library by Relative Collecting Level and by Library of Congress Classes and Subclasses

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“Recently, a great deal of literature on patron-driven acquisition (PDA) has been published that addresses the implementation and results of PDA programs at academic libraries. However, despite widespread worries that PDA will lead to unbalanced collections, little attention has been paid to whether patrons’ and librarians’ purchasing differ significantly. This study analyzes librarians’ and PDA patrons’ acquisitions at an academic library by relative collecting level and by subject (that is, Library of Congress class and subclass) to determine whether concern over patrons’ collecting are warranted.”

URL : http://crl.acrl.org/content/75/5/684.abstract

Process as Product: Scholarly Communication Experiments in the Digital Humanities

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“Scholarly communication outreach and education activities are proliferating in academic libraries. Simultaneously, digital humanists—a group that includes librarians and non-librarians based in libraries, as well as scholars and practitioners without library affiliation—have developed forms of scholarship that demand and introduce complementary innovations focused on infrastructure, modes of dissemination and evaluation, openness, and other areas with implications for scholarly communication. Digital humanities experiments in post-publication filtering, open peer review, middle-state publishing, decentering authority, and multimodal and nonlinear publication platforms are discussed in the context of broader library scholarly communication efforts.”

URL : Process as Product: Scholarly Communication Experiments in the Digital Humanities

Alternative URL : http://jlsc-pub.org/jlsc/vol2/iss3/11/

What Do Researchers Need? Feedback On Use of Online Primary Source Materials

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“Cultural heritage institutions are increasingly providing online access to primary source materials for researchers. While the intent is to enable round-the-clock access from any location, few studies have examined the extent to which current web delivery is meeting the needs of users. Careful use of limited resources requires intelligent assessment of researcher needs in comparison to the actual online presentation, including access, retrieval and usage options. In the hopes of impacting future delivery methods and access development, this article describes the results of a qualitative study of 11 humanities faculty researchers at the University of Alabama, who describe and rate the importance of various issues encountered when using 29 participant-selected online databases.”

URL : http://www.dlib.org/dlib/july14/deridder/07deridder.html

Access to Research: the experience of implementing a pilot in public libraries

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The Access to Research project is a collaboration between scholarly publishers and librarians to provide free licensed access to research journals via terminals in public libraries. The project is an element of the ‘balanced package’ proposed by the Finch Working Group on how to expand access to published research in the UK, which reported its recommendations to the UK government in June 2012. We describe the setting up of the project and the findings from a three-month technical pilot prior to the launch of a two-year national pilot in February 2014.

The project has already attracted support from the major scholarly publishers, with about 8,400 journal titles now available. The access platform has been shown to be usable by public librarians and library patrons. We are now addressing the challenge of understanding how the public will make use of the system and exploring how best to provide training and education for librarians and users.

URL : http://dx.doi.org/10.1087/20140202

Scholarly Communication at Canadian Research Libraries Conversations with…

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Scholarly Communication at Canadian Research Libraries: Conversations with Librarians :

“INTRODUCTION. The landscape of librarianship in relation to the practice of scholarly communication is evolving. The objectives of this study were to investigate: the scope of scholarly communication activities within Canadian research libraries; the organizational structures in place to support them; and the roles of librarians who participate in them. Key challenges to its advancement and how librarians envision its future were also investigated.
METHODS Twenty-nine academic librarians from Canadian Association of Research Libraries member institutions participated in semi-structured, open-ended interviews. Interviews were analyzed for recurring themes.
RESULTS. Participants outlined initiatives, services, and structures to support scholarly communication at their institutions. Solo scholarly communication librarians, specialized teams, and committees were identified as primary structures. Liaison librarians play an essential supporting role regardless of structure. Individually, librarians are seen to have an impact as leaders and advocates in promoting scholarly communication. The concept of “librarian as researcher” is also important. Participants shared a desire for better communication and collaboration in this area. Many participants saw the need for standardized assessment and evaluation methods. Participants enumerated their greatest challenges and provided suggestions for addressing them in the future.
CONCLUSION. This study demonstrates that organizational structure can enhance scholarly communication activities in libraries. Leadership both at the personal and collective level is necessary to provide an impetus for scholarly communication activities. Librarians should be knowledgeable about the issues and be ready to deliver the “pitch.” Strengthening collaboration and communication among Canadian librarians is essential for moving the scholarly communication agenda forward.”

URL : http://jlsc-pub.org/jlsc/vol2/iss2/3/