Film of session from Text and Data Mining symposium - Engineering Department at Cambridge University - August 2017

Blog description of symposium held at Cambridge on Text and Data Mining - Cambridge University
 https://unlockingresearch.blog.lib.cam.ac.uk/?p=1505

Sometimes the best way to find a solution is to just get the different stakeholders talking to each other – and this what happened at a recent Text and Data Mining symposium held in the Engineering Department at Cambridge. The attendees were primarily postgraduate students and early career researchers, but senior researchers, administrative staff, librarians and publishers were also represented in the audience. This symposium grew out of a discussion held earlier this year at Cambridge to consider the issue of TDM and what a TDM library service might look like at Cambridge.

The day concluded with the group reconvening together for a roundtable (which was filmed) to discuss the broader issue of why there is not more TDM happening in the UK

What was clear was something I have repeatedly observed over the past few years – that the players in this space including librarians, researchers and publishers, have very little idea of how the others work and their needs. I have actually heard people say: ‘If only they understood…’

Dr Danny Kingsley

Head, Office of Scholarly Communication

Cambridge University Library

Video now on YouTube: LAUC-B 2015 Conference "Open Access"

The LAUC-B Conference Planning Committee is pleased to announce that recorded sessions from the 2015 LAUC-B Conference "Open Access: Reclaiming Scholarship for the Academy" are now available for streaming. The playlist is on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx47q_V41hH5INhz1YZjX1odHddrRt341

LAUC-B website

The Librarians’ Association of the University of California is an official unit of the University. LAUC-B is the Berkeley chapter of this statewide association whose primary responsibility is to advise the University on professional and governance matters and to make recommendations concerning UC librarians’ rights, privileges and obligations and to promote full use of UC librarians’ professional abilities.

Open Access: Reclaiming Scholarship for the Academy (October 16, 2015)

With the Academic Senate’s 2013 adoption of the UC Open Access Policy the University of California joined a growing number of universities and funding organizations promoting increased access to scholarly research. Please join the Librarians' Association of the University of California, Berkeley Division as we explore the application and implementation of open access (OA) policies across various academic disciplines, the role of OA repositories, how adoption of UC’s Open Access Policy has impacted individual campuses and OA advocates, and future OA trends. This Conference will be of particular interest to librarians, though anyone interested in open access and scholarly communication is welcome to register.

The Conference will feature keynotes by Michael Eisen and Randy Schekman, both UC Berkeley faculty members and longtime open access advocates, as well as a panel discussion, poster sessions, lightning talks and breakout sessions

LAUC Website

The Librarians Association of the University of California (LAUC), founded in 1967, is a statewide organization of all librarians employed at least half time by the University. The formal objectives of LAUC are: to advise the University on professional and governance matters, to make recommendations concerning the UC librarians' rights, privileges and obligations, and to promote full use of UC librarians' professional abilities.

Think Like a Start-Up: a White Paper - Brian Matthews (University of Virginia)

Think Like a Start-Up: a White Paper

April 4, 2012, 1:19 pm

By Brian Mathews

This project has been in the works for a long time. I think that the initial seed was planted during my time at Georgia Tech. It simmered while I was out in California. And it crystalized as soon as I arrived in Blacksburg. I thought this document would be a one-pager that I could finish over a weekend, but it grew into something much more involved.

I’ve been fascinated with startup culture for a long time and as I considered all the changes happening in academic libraries (and higher ed) the parallels were quite stunning. No, we’re not developing new products to bring to market, and no, we’re not striving for an IPO payday, but we are being required to rethink/rebuild/repurpose what a library is and what it does. The next twenty years are going to be an interestingly chaotic time for the history of our institutions.

Here’s a snippet that frames the paper:

The media and pop culture provide us with romanticized visions of dorm room ideas becoming billion dollar IPOs. And indeed, that does happen sometimes, but startups are more than rags to riches stories. In concise terms: startups are organizations dedicated to creating something new under conditions of extreme uncertainty. This sounds exactly like an academic library to me. Not only are we trying to survive, but we’re also trying to transform our organizations into a viable service for 21st century scholars and learners.

This paper is a collection of talking points intended to stir the entrepreneurial spirit in library leaders at every level. I think it is also useful for library science students as they prepare to enter and impact the profession. My intention is for this to be a conversation starter, not a step-by-step plan. The future is ours to figure out and I hope that this captures the spirit of the changes ahead.

Think Like A Startup: a white paper to inspire library entrepreneurialism (3.96 Mb) PDF

The Fight Over the Future of Digital Books - Dan Cohen, Atlantic Magazine, September 2012

The Fight Over the Future of Digital Books

By Dan Cohen

On September 12, 2011, the Authors Guild sued the University of Michigan, the University of California, the University of Wisconsin, Indiana University, and Cornell University over digital copies of books from their vast libraries. Many of these scanned books are no longer in print and of interest only to scholars, but the lawsuit reflects the growing tension between professional authors and the libraries that hold their work.

This article available online at:
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/09/the-fight-over-the-future-of-digital-books/245577/

University of Michigan Puts HathiTrust Orphan Works Project on Hold

University of Michigan Library is reexamining its pilot for identifying orphan works in the HathiTrust project.  The project could be put on hold.

"The University of Michigan (UM) Library today released a statement announcing that it would be examining its "flawed" pilot process for identifying orphan works, putting its HathiTrust orphan works project effectively on hold. This follows reaction about the status of several works on its publicly posted orphan candidates list.

The statement also comes in the wake of a lawsuit filed on September 12 by the Authors Guild, Australian and Canadian authors' organizations, and eight authors against HathiTrust, UM, and four other member universities to stop them from "reproducing, distributing and/or displaying" copyrighted works.

The HathiTrust orphan works project was previously due to make some full-text electronic versions of orphans—in-copyright works for which rights holders cannot be found—available to the UM community starting October 13."

http://www.libraryjournal.com/lj/newsletters/newsletterbucketacademicnewswire/892061-440/university_of_michigan_puts_hathitrust.html.csp#.TnvF29QQev8.email 

An open letter to J.R. Salamanca - Response to Author Guild suit over orphan works

An open letter to J.R. Salamanca

A letter from Kevin Smith, Duke University Scholarly Communications Officer, on the Author Guild suit against the HathiTrust and five of Hathi’s partner universities over the Hathi Orphan Works project.

Hiring Non-MLS Librarians: Trends and Training Implications - ALA Presentation

The slides to the PowerPoint presentations for all four speakers at the “Hiring Non-MLS Librarians” session, LLAMA Human Resources Section, American Libraries Association Annual Confernece, New Orleans LA, 26 June 20111.

URL: http://ufdc.ufl.edu/l/IR00000459/00001

"Libraries hire professionals from outside librarianship for positions traditionally held by MLS-degreed librarians. Hear results of ALA-funded research to examine hiring practices in public and academic libraries and the essential elements of an orientation for non-MLS hires in librarian positions. We really need research on how to strengthen the MLS and stop this dilution of library staff. Hear and protest!"

Best of the web from American Association of School Librarians (AASL)

Top 25 websites from 2011 (and from 2010 and 2009) chosen by AASL at an ALA presentation in New Orleans. There are a number of collaborative tools.

All of these are free or partly free tools with some great applications. For example, there is something that looks like a cross between Prezi and MindMap called SpicyNodes and a citation tool called iCyte.

Check out the winners at
http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/aasl/guidelinesandstandards/bestlist/bestwebsitestop25.cfm

Librarians in the U.S. from 1880-2009 from OUP SocIal Explorer

Social Explorer: Librarians in the U.S. from 1880-2009

Oxford University Press

An analysis using 120 years of census data
By Sydney Beveridge, Susan Weber and Andrew A. Beveridge, Social Explorer

"The U.S. Census first collected data on librarians in 1880, four years after the founding of the American Library Association. They only counted 636 librarians nationwide. Indeed, one respondent reported on his census form that he was the “Librarian of Congress.” The U.S. Census, which became organized as a permanent Bureau in 1902, can be used to track the growth of the library profession. The number of librarians grew over the next hundred years, peaking at 307,273 in 1990. Then, the profession began to shrink, and as of 2009, it had dropped by nearly a third to 212,742. The data enable us to measure the growth, the gender split in this profession known to be mostly female, and to explore other divides in income and education, as they changed over time.

We examined a number of socioeconomic trends over the duration, and focused in on 1950 the first year that detailed wage data were recorded, 1990 at the peak of the profession and 2009 the most currently available data.¹ We looked at data within the profession and made comparisons across the work world."

Future of Academic Libraries: Taiga Forum 2011 Provocative Statements

From the Taiga Forum blog:

"On 11/1/2010, Taiga Forum 6 met in Palo Alto to begin developing a new set of provocative statements regarding some future challenges to academic libraries. Another group discussed the draft statements at ALA Midwinter in San Diego in January, 2011. The Taiga Forum Steering Committee has taken that input and created this third round of Taiga Forum Provocative Statements. As before, the statements are intended to provoke conversation rather than attempt to predict the future."

Here's one of the ten provocative statements:

"Within five years, graduate students and faculty will fill all their information needs online, never coming into the library, yet they will continue to idealize the library as a sacred place to commune with books. Libraries will respond by flipping their stacks into designer reading rooms that use books as decor."

And another:

"Within five years, libraries will be forced to acknowledge that our boutique services have been collecting 'in the basement.' To clean house, libraries will implement planned abandonment."

See: http://bit.ly/l1URO1

Bernie Sloan

Belen Aguilar and David Thornfield Wedding - July 2, 2011

TheKnot

Belen Aguilar and David Thornfield
Wedding service at 1:47 pm
July 2, 2011
Crossline Church
23331 Moulton Parkway
Laguna Hills, Ca 92653

http://tinyurl.com/dbt7211

Holiday tree - Librarian-style

Some librarians took National Union Catalog volumes and turned them into a Christmas tree.
Source: libraryland:softculture:anarchivist (17 Dec. 2010)

Also posted to http://booklover.tumblr.com/post/286319825/libraryland-softculture-anarchivist-some

[Click on the picture to learn to make your own.]

How College Students Evaluate and Use Information in the Digital Age - Report from University of Washington I-School

T ruth Be Told: How College Students Evaluate and Use Information in the Digital Age
BY ALISON J. HEAD, PH.D. AND MICHAEL B. EISENBERG, PH.D.
PROJECT INFORMATION LITERACY PROGRESS REPORT
NOVEMBER 1, 2010
THE INFORMATION SCHOOL, UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON
RESEARCH SPONSORED BY MACARTHUR FOUNDATION

A "Project Information Literacy" progress report. The project is based at the U of Washington I-School.

Here's one interesting finding:

"Evaluating information was often a collaborative process — almost two-thirds of the respondents (61%) reportedly turned to friends and/or family members when they needed help and advice with sorting through and evaluating information for personal use. Nearly half of the students in the sample (49%) frequently asked instructors for assistance with assessing the quality of sources for course work — far fewer asked librarians (11%) for assistance."

Full text at: http://bit.ly/chfOxe

Librarians Save The Day! 11 Great Movies In Which They Star

Librarians Save The Day! 11 Great Movies In Which They Star
Posted 08-16-2010
Huffington Post

"While writers might seem more glamorous, librarians are the quiet heroes of the literary world. They stand up against censorship, they uncover ancient mysteries, they laugh in the face of computerization and stop the corporate world dead in its tracks. From Katharine Hepburn to Rachel Weisz, we've rounded up films that give librarians the center stage. Remember these?"

Nature Publishing May Face Boycott - ACS Publications

Nature Publishing May Face Boycott
Publishing: University of California libraries decry journal price hikes
Sophie L. Rovner
Published: June 11, 2010
Article Location: http://pubs.acs.org/cen/email/html/8824notw3.html

"The University of California is threatening to boycott Nature Publishing Group (NPG) journals in hopes of quashing the publisher’s attempt to raise subscription prices. NPG counters that UC is distorting the facts."
[more]

From Chemical & Engineering News http://www.cen-online.org
A service of the American Chemical Society.

Are we meeting the needs of our users? - App building for libraries

Are we meeting the needs of our users?

This June 2010 ALA Policy Brief argues for the development of hand held services in libraries to "support the information needs of our users wherever they may be..."

There’s an App for That! Libraries and Mobile Technology: An Introduction
to Public Policy Considerations
ALA Policy Brief No. 3, June 2010

http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/oitp/publications/policybriefs/mobiledevices.pdf

As the information revolution continues to unfold, libraries will experiment with mobile devices and services to support the information needs of their users wherever they may be. The adoption of mobile technology alters the traditional relationships between libraries and their users and introduces novel challenges to reader privacy. At the same time, the proliferation of mobile devices and services raises issues of
access to information in the digital age, including content ownership and licensing, digital rights management, and accessibility. This policy brief explores some of these issues, and is intended to stimulate further community discussion and policy analysis.

Support for UC-Nature ban - The Scientist

Posted by Megan Scudellari

[Entry posted at 10th June 2010 03:36 PM GMT]
The Scientist
Read more: Support for UC-Nature ban - The Scientist - Magazine of the Life Sciences

University of California scientists are speaking out in favor of UC's threat to boycott Nature Publishing Group over a proposed 400 percent hike in licensing fees.

"Nature is making a very unfortunate move here," said Alex Bell, a professor of chemical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. "Multiple-fold increases are unjustified. I think it's bordering on exploitation."

In a letter mass e-mailed to faculty earlier this week and posted on the UC Libraries website, the California Digital Library and the University Committee on Library and Scholarly Communications say the school is facing an "impending crisis," a proposed licensing price hike that would raise the cost for 67 Nature Publishing Group (NPG) journals by well over $1 million per year. The proposed new fees come at a time when UC libraries are in an economic pinch and worked all last year to reduce their electronic journal costs by $1 million per year.

Read more: Support for UC-Nature ban - The Scientist - Magazine of the Life Sciences

Nature Publishing Group Defends Its Price Increase for University of California

Nature Publishing Group Defends Its Price Increase for U. of California
The Chronicle of Higher Education
By Jennifer Howard
June 11, 2010

The Nature Publishing Group has responded publicly to the challenge issued on Tuesday by the University of California system over a proposed 400-percent rise in the cost of Nature and the group's other scientific journals. In a long, strongly worded statement http://www.nature.com/press_releases/cdl.html released to the news media on Wednesday, the publisher disputed assertions that it was unfairly increasing its prices in California's case. It accused the California Digital Library, which negotiates the UC system's subscription licenses, of sensationalism and spreading misinformation. And it said that the digital library's threat to cancel its subscriptions and organize a faculty boycott of the Nature group's journals had taken it by surprise.

Source: http://chronicle.com/article/Nature-Publishing-Group/65848/

University of California response to Nature statement [11:29 am PST]

UC threatens ‘systemwide boycott’ of Nature Publishing Group - June 09, 2010

The University of California is mulling a boycott of Nature Publishing Group in response to what it claims is a proposed 400% increase in subscription fees to the group’s journals, a letter from the university’s libraries reveals.

Dated 4 June, the letter says that unless NPG keeps to the current subscription agreement, faculty will be asked to cease submitting papers and undertaking peer review for NPG journals, to resign from all NPG editorial and advisory boards, and to not advertise jobs in NPG journals. Staff would also be urged to encourage “sympathy actions” from researchers outside the UC system.

The letter describes the proposed price increase as “of unprecedented magnitude”.

“NPG has made their ultimatum with full knowledge that our libraries are under economic distress,” it says. “...Capitulating to NPG now would wipe out all of the recent cost-saving measures taken by CDL [California Digital Library] and our campus libraries to reduce expenditures for electronic journals.”

It further points out that UC authors have produced 5,300 articles in Nature journals over the past six years and claims that these have contributed “at least” $19 million to NPG in revenue.

Speaking to the Chronicle of Higher Education, Keith Yamamoto, the executive vice dean of the School of Medicine at UC-San Francisco, points out that publisher Elsevier was forced to backtrack on proposed price rises for Cell Press journals in 2003 by a similar boycott. “There’s a strong feeling that this is an irresponsible action on the part of NPG,” he says.

Nature News has asked NPG for a response to the letter. It will be posted here as soon as we have it.

Posted by Daniel Cressey on June 09, 2010

University of California Tries Just Saying No to Rising Journal Costs

U of California Tries Just Saying No to Rising Journal Costs
The Chronicle of Higher Education
By Jennifer Howard
June 10, 2010

The University of California system has said "enough" to the Nature Publishing Group, one of the leading commercial scientific publishers, over a big proposed jump in the cost of the group's journals.

On Tuesday, a letter http://libraries.ucsd.edu/collections/Nature_Faculty_Letter-June_2010.pdf
went out to all of the university's faculty members from the California Digital Library, which negotiates the system's deals with publishers, and the University Committee on Library and Scholarly Communication. The letter said that Nature proposed to raise the cost of California's license for its journals by 400 percent next year. If the publisher won't negotiate, the letter said, the system may have to take "more drastic actions" with the help of the faculty. Those actions could include suspending subscriptions to all of the Nature Group journals the California system buys access to-67 in all, including Nature.

The pressure does not stop there. The letter said that faculty would also organize "a systemwide boycott" of Nature's journals if the publisher does not relent. The voluntary boycott would "strongly encourage" researchers not to contribute papers to those journals or review manuscripts for them. It would urge them to resign from Nature's editorial boards and to encourage similar "sympathy actions" among colleagues outside the University of California system.

See the complete article at http://chronicle.com/article/U-of-California-Tries-Just/65823/.