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

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/

Open Access Journals & Academics’ Behaviour The…

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Open Access Journals & Academics’ Behaviour :

“The rising star of scholarly publishing is Open Access. Even some traditional journals now offer this option on author payment, and many full freely accessible journals are now available to scholars, providing relief to research institutions increasingly unable to afford the escalating subscription rates of serials. However, proper recognition of full Open Access journals by the community remains a major obstacle to overcome if they are to become a viable alternative for scholarly communication. Through a survey, this work investigates economics scholars’ attitudes to OA, and attempts to outline the state of practices and norms governing individuals’ publication choices.”

URL : http://www.icer.it/docs/wp2014/ICERwp03-14.pdf

Institutional Repository Management Models That Support Faculty Research Dissemination

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Purpose – Research dissemination is a core mission for all universities. As a result, libraries should adopt this mission, utilizing institutional repositories services to support this goal. This paper aims to explore management models that institutional repositories can use for this purpose.

Design/methodology/approach – By using research dissemination as a primary objective, individual management models are reviewed for their ability to accomplish this goal. Institutional repository services resulting from this purpose are also described.

Findings – By adopting these kinds of models, libraries can develop new services that go beyond traditional library services and provide key support for the dissemination of a university’s scholarship.

Originality/value – This article challenges the existing ideology surrounding institutional repositories and helps frame these services as a core component for fulfilling an important university mission.

URL : http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/lib_facpubs/95/

Access to Research Inputs Open Science Versus the…

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Access to Research Inputs: Open Science Versus the Entrepreneurial University :

“The viability of modern open science norms and practices depend on public disclosure of new knowledge, methods, and materials. However, increasing industry funding of research can restrict the dissemination of results and materials. We show, through a survey sample of 837 German scientists in life sciences, natural sciences, engineering, and social sciences, that scientists who receive industry funding are twice as likely to deny requests for research inputs as those who do not. Receiving external funding in general does not affect denying others access. Scientists who receive external funding of any kind are, however, 50% more likely to be denied access to research materials by others, but this is not affected by being funded specifically by industry.”

URL : http://ssrn.com/abstract=2407437

Open Access Publishing A Literature Review Within…

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Open Access Publishing: A Literature Review :

“Within the context of the Centre for Copyright and New Business Models in the Creative Economy (CREATe) research scope, this literature review investigates the current trends, advantages, disadvantages, problems and solutions, opportunities and barriers in Open Access Publishing (OAP), and in particular Open Access (OA) academic publishing. This study is intended to scope and evaluate current theory and practice concerning models for OAP and engage with intellectual, legal and economic perspectives on OAP. It is also aimed at mapping the field of academic publishing in the UK and abroad, drawing specifically upon the experiences of CREATe industry partners as well as other initiatives such as SSRN, open source software, and Creative Commons. As a final critical goal, this scoping study will identify any meaningful gaps in the relevant literature with a view to developing further research questions. The results of this scoping exercise will then be presented to relevant industry and academic partners at a workshop intended to assist in further developing the critical research questions pertinent to OAP.”

URL : http://www.create.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/CREATe-Working-Paper-2014-01.pdf

Bringing Digital Science Deep Inside the Scientific Article…

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Bringing Digital Science Deep Inside the Scientific Article: the Elsevier Article of the Future Project :

“The ICT revolution of the last decades impacted scientific communication as it has impacted many other forms of communications, changing the way in which articles are delivered and how they can be discovered. However, the impact of ICT on the research itself has been much more profound, introducing digital tools to the way in which researchers gather data, perform analyses, and exchange results. This brought new, digital forms of research output, and disseminating those calls for changes deeply impact the core format of the scientific article.
In 2009, Elsevier introduced the “Article of the Future” project to define an optimal way for the dissemination of science in the digital age, and in this paper we discuss three of its key dimensions. First we discuss interlinking scientific articles and research data stored with domain-specific data repositories — such interlinking is essential to interpret both article and data efficiently and correctly. We then present easy-to-use 3D visualization tools embedded in online articles: a key example of how the digital article format adds value to scientific communication and helps readers to better understand research results. The last topic covered in this paper is automatic enrichment of journal articles through text-mining or other methods. Here we share insights from a recent survey on the question: how can we find a balance between creating valuable contextual links, without sacrificing the high-quality, peer-reviewed status of published articles?”

URL : http://liber.library.uu.nl/index.php/lq/article/view/8446