c/o Katina Strauch Post Office Box 799 Sullivan’s Island, SC 29482
VOLUME 34, NUMBER 2
APRIL 2022 TM
ISSN: 1043-2094
“Linking Publishers, Vendors and Librarians”
WHAT TO LOOK FOR IN THIS ISSUE:
eBooks: More Than A Book Guest Edited by Daniel L. Huang
(Resource Acquisitions Manager, Lehigh University Libraries) Begins on Page 12
If Rumors Were Horses
H
appy Spring! Lots of rumors and news and updates to keep up with these days. We’ve been posting them online at https:// www.charleston-hub.com/category/rumors/ in order to keep up and not have to wait until the next journal issue. Take a look and keep up with all the latest there!
Making Big Moves Carol and Tom Gilson are moving away from Charleston after many years. Carol has lived in Charleston since she was a child and Tom came here in the early 1980s. They have lived here since they were married more than 25 years ago. A lot of people are moving out of Charleston these days because of traffic and expenses, not to mention increased flooding and the threat of hurricanes. Not me! I love Charleston. Carol and Tom have just moved to Newberry, SC, which is known for its small-town history and charm. It is much smaller than Charleston (10,245 in 2019) and has a college and an opera house. Just outside downtown on a lonely stretch of road is one of the premier producers of orchids. By any chance, do you know the Nero Wolfe mysteries? Written in the thirties and set in a New York Brownstone, these are some of my favorite mysteries. Rex Stout, the author, was a librarian. He raised orchids in his spare time. Stout was also a gourmand and produced a few recipe books. But back to Tom and Carol! Tom is not leaving ATG continued on page 8
The Stalemate........................... 12 The Public Knowledge Project’s Open Monograph Press .......... 14 Pressbooks Reflects on a Growing Movement and How Librarians Can Move OER Forward.............................. 18 Fulcrum Presents the Next Big Thing in Scholarly Communications ... The Book! .................................. 23 Where’s my stuff? A First Attempt at a Multi-supplier “My Account” Area..................... 25
REGULAR COLUMNS Bet You Missed It....................... 10 Reader’s Roundup..................... 29 Booklover.................................... 34 Legally Speaking....................... 35 Questions and Answers............ 37 Don’s Conference Notes........... 39 And They Were There............... 46 Learning Belongs...................... 53 Scholarly Publishing Scene..... 55 Let’s Get Technical..................... 57 The Digital Toolbox.................. 59 Optimizing Library Services.... 61 Biz of Digital............................... 64 Back Talk..................................... 74
INTERVIEWS Michele Avissar-Whiting.......... 66 Ann Kardos and Gretchen Neidhardt.................................... 68
PROFILES ENCOURAGED People, Library and Company Profiles........................................ 71 Plus more...................... See inside
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Against The Grain – ISSUE HIGHLIGHTS Against the Grain (ISSN: 1043-2094) (USPS: 012-618), Copyright 2022 by the name Against the Grain, LLC is published six times a year in February, April, June, September, November, and December/ January by Against the Grain, LLC. Business and Editorial Offices: PO Box 799, 1712 Thompson Ave., Sullivan’s Island, SC 29482. Accounting and Circulation Offices: same. Subscribe online at https://www.charleston-hub.com/membership-options/.
Editor:
Katina Strauch (Retired, College of Charleston)
Associate Editors:
Cris Ferguson (Murray State) Tom Gilson (Retired, College of Charleston) Matthew Ismail (Charleston Hub)
Research Editors:
Judy Luther (Informed Strategies)
Assistants to the Editor: Ileana Jacks Toni Nix (Just Right Group, LLC)
International Editor:
Rossana Morriello (Politecnico di Torino)
Contributing Editors:
Glenda Alvin (Tennessee State University) Deni Auclair (De Gruyter) Rick Anderson (Brigham Young University) Sever Bordeianu (U. of New Mexico) Todd Carpenter (NISO) Eleanor Cook (East Carolina University) Will Cross (NC State University) Anne Doherty (Choice) Michelle Flinchbaugh (U. of MD Baltimore County) Joyce Dixon-Fyle (DePauw University) Michael Gruenberg (Gruenberg Consulting, LLC) Chuck Hamaker (Retired, UNC, Charlotte) Bob Holley (Retired, Wayne State University) Donna Jacobs (MUSC) Ramune Kubilius (Northwestern University) Myer Kutz (Myer Kutz Associates, Inc.) Tom Leonhardt (Retired) Stacey Marien (American University) Jack Montgomery (Georgia Southern University Libraries) Alayne Mundt (American University) Bob Nardini (ProQuest) Jim O’Donnell (Arizona State University) Ann Okerson (Center for Research Libraries) Anthony Paganelli (Western Kentucky University) Rita Ricketts (Blackwell’s) Jared Seay (College of Charleston) Corey Seeman (University of Michigan) Lindsay Wertman (IGI Global)
ATG Proofreader:
Caroline Goldsmith (Charleston Hub)
Graphics:
Bowles & Carver, Old English Cuts & Illustrations. Grafton, More Silhouettes. Ehmcke, Graphic Trade Symbols By German Designers.Grafton,Ready-to-Use Old-Fashioned Illustrations. The Chap Book Style.
Production & Ad Sales:
Toni Nix, Just Right Group, LLC., P.O. Box 412, Cottageville, SC 29435, phone: 843-835-8604 fax: 843-835-5892 <justwrite@lowcountry.com>
ISSUES, NEWS, & GOINGS ON Rumors............................................................................................................... 1 From Your Editor................................................................................................ 6 Letters to the Editor........................................................................................... 6 Advertising Deadlines........................................................................................ 6
FEATURES The Stalemate.................................................................................................. 12 The Public Knowledge Project’s Open Monograph Press................................. 14 Pressbooks Reflects on a Growing Movement and How Librarians Can Move OER Forward.......................................................................................... 18 Fulcrum Presents the Next Big Thing in Scholarly Communications ... The Book!......................................................................................................... 23 Where’s my stuff? A First Attempt at a Multi-supplier “My Account” Area...... 25 Back Talk — A Streetcar in Athens................................................................... 74
REVIEWS Reader’s Roundup: Monographic Musings & Reference Reviews.................... 29 Booklover — Rhyme, Russian, Revolution, and Reason.................................... 34
LEGAL ISSUES Legally Speaking — NFTs, Blockchain, and Copyright Issues........................... 35 Questions and Answers — Copyright Column.................................................. 37
PUBLISHING Bet You Missed It............................................................................................. 10 Don’s Conference Notes — The 2022 NISO Plus Conference............................ 39 The Miles Conrad Lecture............................................................................ 44 And They Were There — Reports of Meetings.................................................. 46
TECHNOLOGY & STANDARDS AND TEACHING & LEARNING Learning Belongs in the Library — OER and Achieving Wide Faculty Adoption: Three Hurdles................................................................................. 53 The Scholarly Publishing Scene — The 2022 PROSE Awards............................ 55 Let’s Get Technical — Text and Data Mining Support at the University of Chicago Library................................................................................................ 57
BOOKSELLING AND VENDING
Advertising Information:
The Digital Toolbox — Q&A: How Consortia Are Helping Shape the Present and Future for Academic Libraries...................................................... 59
Publisher:
Optimizing Library Services — Embracing OER and Enhancing Digital Skills for the 21st Century: Using Applied Digital Skills as a Powerful Teaching and Learning Tool............................................................................. 61
Toni Nix, phone: 843-835-8604, fax: 843-835-5892 <justwrite@lowcountry.com> A. Bruce Strauch
Send correspondence, press releases, etc., to: Katina Strauch, Editor, Against the Grain, LLC Post Office Box 799 Sullivan’s Island, SC 29482 cell: 843-509-2848 <kstrauch@comcast.net> Authors’ opinions are to be regarded as their own. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. This issue was produced on an iMac using Microsoft Word, and Adobe CS6 Premium software under Mac OS X Mountain Lion. Against the Grain is copyright ©2022 by Katina Strauch
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v.34 #2 April 2022 © Katina Strauch
Against the Grain / April 2022
Biz of Digital — Digital Soundings: Fostering Interdisciplinary Digital Scholarship at UNCW....................................................................................... 64
ATG INTERVIEWS & PROFILES Michele Avissar-Whiting – Editor in Chief, Research Square........................... 66 Unseen Labor: An Interview with Ann Kardos and Gretchen Neidhardt......... 68 Profiles Encouraged......................................................................................... 71
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Content from 1917-2005
Content from 2006-2015
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Content from 1917-2015
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From Your (Springing!) Editor:
I
t was a cold winter here in Sullivan’s Island! But spring has finally sprung and we are looking forward to the summer heat. Hope that all of you are looking forward to summer as well! We are getting used to ATG going totally digital and thank you all for welcoming this! A huge shout out to Toni Nix for her incredible work to bring ATG to life digitally. This transition took a lot of preparation and many changes to our workflow. We’re still learning! And another huge shout out to Dan Huang, Resource Acquisitions Manager at Lehigh University Libraries, for guest editing this issue. His article aptly asks “…whether or not we are in a period of technological stagnation,” and “What will break the technological stalemate?” Dan seeks answers from our featured authors, including Allen Jones, The New School, who writes about breaking the wall between content and the library patron with a multi-supplier “My Account” area; Leigh Kinch-Pedrosa and Travis Wall of Pressbooks on Open Educational Resources; Charles
Watkinson, University of Michigan and Michigan Publishing, on the Fulcrum platform and “The Next Big Thing in Academic Publishing… The Book!”; and finally, John Willinsky, Stanford University and the Open Monograph Project, on the Open Monograph Project’s Open Monograph Press. Dan and all of our featured authors will be also presenting a free webcast on April 20 — don’t miss your chance to hear more about these intriguing topics and participate in a lively discussion/Q&A afterwards. Register (or watch the recording when that’s made available afterwards) at https://www.charlestonhub.com/2022/04/free-webcast-ebooksmore-than-a-book/. Enjoy the rest of your spring, and we’ll see you back here for our next issue in the summer heat of June! Love, Yr.Ed.
Letters to the Editor Send letters to <kstrauch@comcast.net>, phone 843-509-2848, or snail mail: Against the Grain, Post Office Box 799, Sullivan’s Island, SC 29482. You can also send a letter to the editor from the Charleston Hub at http://www.charleston-hub.com/contact-us/. Dear Katina, Tom, & Leah: Congratulations on the first all digital issue of Against the Grain! A significant evolution indeed. I wanted to let you know that several of my Scholarly Publishing Roundtable colleagues and I have just published an article in Learned Publishing that details the history of the Roundtable. I think
AGAINST THE GRAIN ADVERTISING DEADLINES VOLUME 34 — 2022-2023
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FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT Toni Nix <justwrite@lowcountry.com> Phone: 843-835-8604 • Fax: 843-835-5892 6
Against the Grain / April 2022
it’ll be of interest to Charleston Hub readers, not least because the Roundtable included several Charleston stalwarts — Jim O’Donnell, Ann Okerson, and Phil Davis in particular, along with others whose names and work will be very familiar. I’m working on an essay that examines what it took to write that kind of a detailed history that I will submit to ATG, but in the meantime I’m wondering if you’d be interested in posting a brief notice as a news or Rumors item. Hope all is well with you and yours and, again, congratulations! Scott T. Scott Plutchak (Librarian, Epistemologist, Birmingham, Alabama) <splutchak@gmail.com> https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4712-5233 http://tscott.typepad.com Thanks, Scott! Of course, we can certainly include this in the next Rumors column and look forward to publishing the essay when it’s ready. Warmly, Katina Katina Strauch (Editor, Against the Grain) <kstrauch@comcast.net>
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Rumors continued from page 1 or the Charleston Conference, thank goodness! Whew! Watch for his daily News & Announcements and interviews! An update from the semi-retired-but-still-very-active T. Scott Plutchak, as mentioned in this issue’s Letter to the Editor: “The Scholarly Publishing Roundtable, which issued its influential report in 2010, included several Charleston regulars among its mix of academics, librarians, and publishers. The report had a direct and significant impact on the development of public access policies in the U.S. The story of how the Roundtable came to be and why it was successful has now been told in an article just out in Learned Publishing. The Roundtable was unique in successfully bringing together people with very different views of the future of publishing to develop recommendations that were then incorporated into the guidance provided by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. The reasons for that success will be of interest to many who’ve been involved in the long-standing controversies around Open Access. The published version can be found here: https://doi. org/10.1002/leap.1452 People without access to the journal can find the Accepted Manuscript here: https://tscott.typepad. com/tsp/2022/03/the-scholarly-publishing-roundtable.html.” The versatile Mark Cummings, editor and publisher of Choice, since 2013, has announced that he will retire effective April 2, 2022. Mark came to ACRL after a long and distinguished career in academic and educational publishing. He began his professional life in the reference and professional books division at Macmillan, with stints at Scribner’s and Oxford University Press. In the early 1990s, he joined Grolier Publishing Company as editor-in-chief of the Encyclopedia Americana and went on to become vice president and publisher of Grolier’s reference division. He later concentrated on educational technology, first at Scholastic and then at Weekly Reader. Cummings holds a B.A. from Michigan State University along with M.A. and M.Phil. Degrees from Yale University in East Asia-related fields. During his time at Choice, Cummings introduced new and innovative ways of working to the unit, expanding from the traditional magazine and digital reviews into new products including sponsored webinars, podcasts, bibliographic essays, newsletters, and white papers. Cummings boldly led a reexamination of long-held editorial goals, moving the flagship product Choice Reviews away from a singular focus on collection development for undergraduate instruction toward a broader critical assessment of important writing in all fields designed for a broader university audience. He was instrumental in the building of Choice Reviews.org, a database of more than 200,000 reviews, representing more than a quarter-century of scholarship, and Choice360.org a showcase for all the new digital products developed under his leadership. He worked with the Charleston Company to create ccAdvisor, the only peer-reviewed, continuously updated, fully searchable database dedicated to providing in-depth, critical reviews of digital resources for the academic and library markets. In 2021, Cummings launched the content vertical “Toward Inclusive Excellence,” led by editor Alexia Hudson-Ward, which incorporates a weekly blog. With great ingenuity and drive, Cummings approached the challenge of reviving and extending the Choice brand in the face of a changing market. By building these new products, the Choice media portfolio now attracts upwards of 65,000 viewers annually. Rachel Hendrick, Choice’s Director of Operations, will serve as interim editor and publisher. Rachel joined ALA in 2014 as the operations manager at Choice and in 2016 became the director
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Against the Grain / April 2022
of operations. Rachel was initially attracted to Choice because of its mission to provide reviews to academic libraries, but she has found there a community of innovative content creators. As for Mark, I expect to hear of him attending many Metropolitan Operas!
A Touch of Humor and Timely Travel I missed the opportunity to play an April Fool’s joke on y’all. Here’s an alternative story! In 1996, Taco Bell duped people when it announced it had agreed to purchase Philadelphia’s Liberty Bell and intended to rename it the Taco Liberty Bell. This story is especially relevant when I tell y’all that Leah Hinds and her two children Maddie and Jacob traveled to Philly to get a replacement for Leah’s lost passport! The kids had the opportunity to visit the Liberty Bell and many other famous Philly attractions! And Leah was able to attend the Fiesole Retreat in Athens with a new passport! Read all about it here! https://www. charleston-hub.com/2022/04/fiesole-retreat-2022-traditionmeets-innovation/ Something especially timely and important from the Fiesole Retreat was project that was presented there by Quinn Dombrowski, Stanford University, as part of Ann Okerson’s panel on Cultural Heritage: SUCHO — Saving Ukranian Cultural Heritage Online: “We are a group of more than 1,300 cultural heritage professionals — librarians, archivists, researchers, programmers — working together to identify and archive at-risk sites, digital content, and data in Ukrainian cultural heritage institutions while the country is under attack. We are using a combination of technologies to crawl and archive sites and content, including the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, the Browsertrix crawler. So far we have saved more than 30TB of scanned documents, artworks and many other digital materials from 3,500+ websites of Ukrainian museums, libraries and archives.” (https://www.sucho.org/) Leah also reports that Quinn makes her own clothes and custom created several amazing dresses just for the Fiesole Retreat. You can see photos in the #fiesole2022 thread on Twitter!
Charleston News and Announcements Oh! I am sure that you all will be interested in a swanky new hotel in Charleston! The Pinch Hotel (https://www.thepinch. com/) is located where the old Bob Ellis shoe store was at King and George. And, for sure, plan on coming to Charleston in November 2022 for the Charleston Conference we will learn a lot, meet up with colleagues, plus have a lot of fun! Come on down!! The Call for Papers will be opening any day now. Watch for updates at https://www.charleston-hub.com/the-charlestonconference/. And speaking of Charleston, mark your calendars for Charleston In Between May 11-12. The Charleston Conference is planning a very special “In Between” virtual conference event to explore important late-breaking developments that can’t wait until November for discussion. Topics to be covered include: • An update on the Clarivate/ProQuest acquisition from last year’s Charleston In Between, • Exploration of consolidation and competition within the industry at large, • Efforts by ResearchGate and Elsevier to host the content of other publishers, and
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• Updates on recent news developments, with a focus on the Ukraine Conflict and its chilling impact on the conduct of research, scholarship, education. We have a stellar line-up of panelists in the works, with Roger Schonfeld (Director, Libraries & Scholarly Communication & Museums, Ithaka S+R) and Ann Okerson (Senior Advisor, CRL) as panel moderators. Registration will be opening soon so be sure to save the date! The Charleston Report has a big announcement: “Times and formats have changed, as we all know. Our “In the Field” reports and many other items of interest in the newsletter can now be found easily using The Charleston Hub. After careful consideration, we have reached the decision to discontinue the print and PDF newsletter effective June 30, 2022. We will be creating an Open Access Archive of past TCR issues which will be available on the Charleston Hub as well for your historical reading pleasure! Watch for our final issue — v.26 no.6, May/ June 2022 — which will arrive to you the last week of June.” Some excerpts from past issues include: • The U.S. Federal Communications Commission will seek to bring Internet speeds of 1 gigabit per second by 2020 to community institutions such as schools and government buildings. Reuters, March 4, 2010, http:// www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6233NJ20100304. • <2%…The percentage of all books sold in 2009 that were eBooks, according to Bowker. NYTimes.com, February 27, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/ business/economy/28count.html?ref=todayspa.
Against the Grain / April 2022
• 5 million…The number of iBooks downloaded in the first 65 days since the launch of the iPad. TheBookseller.com, June 8, 2010. Wonder what those numbers would look like today?
A Little More You Need To Know This just in! Courtney McAllister already wears many hats — Library Services Engineer at EBSCO, Charleston Conference Director, Associate Editor of The Serials Librarian and Serials Review, and more. And now she’s been elected VP/President Elect of NASIG, 2022-2023! Congrats to you, Courtney! The prolific Nancy Herther is at it again. She’s done a threepart series on BookTok: Book Reviewing in the Age of Social Media, A New Era in Global Book Promotion and Consumption, and Covid, Reading, and the Future of Apps. These in-depth articles include quotes, interviews, and stats on the rise of the viral video-sharing app TikTok and it’s subthread BookTok. Says Nancy, “Momentum is strong and clearly still growing and anyone in the educational, publishing or information industry certainly applauds this increasing interest and the use of social media to reinforce the value of reading, learning and sharing. Better understanding the impact of TikTok and social media in general on the book industry, readers and the rediscovery of incredible works of literature is fundamental today as well.” See the series and more articles by Nancy at https://www. charleston-hub.com/2022/04/booktok-part-3-covid-readingand-the-future-of-apps/. That’s it for now. Thanks and see you next issue (or online)!
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Bet You Missed It — Press Clippings — In the News Carefully Selected by Your Crack Staff of News Sleuths Column Editor: Bruce Strauch (The Citadel, Emeritus) <bruce.strauch@gmail.com>
Bookshop Profile
TOWIE
Hatchards is said to be the oldest bookstore in the UK (1797). Forest green shopfront, oak staircase, Georgian tables, a tea table where Oscar Wilde sat and proofed Oscariana, his book of maxims. And three Royal Warrants, making it the official bookseller to the Royal Family.
Essex is an ancient county of England to the east of London. It has Roman ruins and landscapes that Constable painted. It also has spill-over from London that would have once been called cockney. And mobsters. And the materialistic dunce with a spray-on tan called “the Essex girl” who is the butt of endless jokes. And then there’s the reality TV show TOWIE — “The Only Way is Essex” — which has been compared to “Jersey Shore.”
It’s at 187 Piccadilly in London when you’re in town. Right next to Fortnum and Mason. See: Emma J. Page, “Hatchards,” English Home, April, 2022, p.104.
Obit of Note Duvall Hecht (1929-2022) was bored out of his wits on his hourlong commute to a banking job. Pop music was crap and smothered in ads. In the 1970s, he sold his Porsche and recorded a drama coach reading George Plimpton’s Paper Lions. Over five years, Books on Tape exploded. In 2001, he sold it to Random House for $20 million. He is not happy that classics are being shoved out by best-sellers and says, had he expected, he might not have sold. This business success followed being an Olympic oarsman in 1952 and 1956 and founding and coaching the rowing program at U-Cal Irvine. Then he became a long-haul trucker with his wife riding along. They listened to Books on Tape. See: “The Olympic Rower who Invented Books on Tape,” The Week, March 4, 2002, p.35.
Let’s Read Houses Jack Mclaughlin, Jefferson and Monticello (1988) (the construction of the house reveals much about Jefferson); (2) George Howe Colt, The Big House (2003) (farewell tour of a house where a family spent each summer); (3) Jane Austen, Mansfield Park (1814) (social constraint as the price of harmony in a house of grandeur); (4) Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca (1938) (Manderley as a character in its own right); (5) P.G. Wodehouse, Pigs Have Wings (1952) (Blandings Castle as an upside down Mansfield Park).
Feeling blighted by the imprint of the show, county council has launched a half million dollar campaign to change perceptions to one of culture and history. But TOWIE is reality TV after all. Which is to say the “chav culture” stereotypes are pretty truthful. Hence the cast and locals are furious. They see themselves as having put Essex on the map. Plus they like white stilettos and the vajazzle. See: James Hookway, “In U.K. Version of the Jersey Shore, Rebranding Plan Strikes a Nerve,” The Wall Street Journal, March 25, 2022, p.A1.
Legendary Bar Novelist Lee Durkee writes about scuffling for a living as a cab driver in Oxford, Miss. and his favorite drinking hole Ajax Diner. You really have to read it in full. Total Southern wacky characters and barroom/diner ambiance. He says a restaurant is not some foodie menu or special sauce, but “its long term workers and regulars.” Richard and Lisa Howorth of Square Books get honored mentions as drinking regulars along with Joey Lauren Adams of Chasing Amy fame. Lee is the author of The Last Taxi Driver and Stalking Shakespeare. See: Lee Durkee, “The Spirit of Ajax Diner,” Garden & Gun, April/May, 2022, p.172.
See: Max Byrd, “Five Best,” The Wall Street Journal, March 5-6, 2022, p.C8. Max’s most recently novel is “Pont Neuf.”
10 Against the Grain / April 2022
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The Stalemate By Daniel L. Huang (Resource Acquisitions Manager, Lehigh University Libraries) <dlh4@lehigh.edu>
W
hen I first stepped into the academic library acquisitions world in 2013 we all were bright-eyed at the sight of all the things that could happen with the advent of the eBook. Would we be doing away with print books (hah!)? Would the evidence-based acquisition model be the death knell for the subject selector (now we need someone just for the EBAs)? Would ProQuest’s Ebook Central take over the world (no librarian commentary needed)? All ludicrous ideas nearly a decade later! At Lehigh University, we work on the FOLIO LSP project: an open source technology platform that changes the library’s relationship with the enterprise of running a library and its borrowing, lending, and more. There are more projects out there that are just as innovative that potentially change the way a library’s users can both access and develop academic book content. Innovative eBook platforms are more than simply a way to download a book or a venue for an acquisitions librarian to purchase. The question being asked in hushed whispers in happy hours is whether or not we are in a period of technological stagnation. A common followup point of inquiry is whether or not we have entered another era of big deals and large dollar signs in parallel with vendor inflexibility and publisher rigidity. What will break the technological stalemate? If the eBook is the new format to serve patrons far and wide in hybrid learning environments, why has the format not advanced past a facsimile of the print book? Whether we wanted it or not, we’ve stepped into an era where our clients might as well be on Mars and unable to access our print collections. So let’s get to introducing our innovators, one by one, who are breaking the eBook stalemate. I call attention first to John Willinsky from Stanford University and the Open Monograph Project. What if our technological stagnation is because we think of the scholarly monograph as an object that requires a publishing house to create? Come to think of it, why do we think of a publisher as a requirement? What if the infrastructure to create our own publishing houses was a matter of installing a software package the same way we install any other open source technology in our technical services basements? Ah, we as an industry do not like what publishers do with books? Then I call upon us to consider the possibilities of doing it better ourselves (or to at least not blame the lack of technology infrastructure). What if there’s more to books than just the printed words? I recall a Charleston session once where we all discussed the fact that textbooks outpaced the general Consumer Price Index in terms of cost increases. We included in this special issue an article from Leigh KinchPedrosa and Travis Wall from Pressbooks. Librarians speak often about Open Educational Resources as an abstract concept and one where there is a low sticker cost but a high implementation cost. What if the
12 Against the Grain / April 2022
infrastructure to defray some of those implementation and maintenance costs existed? How can an OER platform assist libraries with sustaining and growing textbook creation on campuses? And next time on Startup Ebooks: the Next Generation (please read this aloud in a circa 1989 TV announcer voice), “In our futuristic Charles Watkinson and Jeremy Morse from the University of era where Michigan discuss the Fulcrum supercomputers platform. In our futuristic era exist in our where supercomputers exist in our pockets ... why pockets and we can command our light switches by voice command, does academia why does academia conceive of conceive of eBooks as a pure facsimile of the eBooks as a pure printed word? There is an argument that the technological stagnation facsimile of the of academic monographs ought printed word?” to be broken by maximizing the benefits of the online platform and connecting the eBook to its related digital media and data sets. In the Acquisitions world we often forget that once we have purchased all the things that we ought to help the client find all the things. As a librarian I am well aware that our industry thinks that the discovery question is largely a solved problem. As a client or a (former) ILL technician, I will tell you that this is far from a solved problem. Keep in mind that to a user buying and borrowing are all forms of “getting” and multiple forms of “getting” eBooks (or other materials) are likely nonsense procedures to a generation of users where supercomputers exist in our pockets (no need for the 1989 TV announcer voice here). Allen Jones from the New School writes on breaking the stalemate of the wall between content and the library patron. He calls for addressing these issues for library users via creating new data standards in order for libraries, vendors, and suppliers to communicate statuses and availability. For readers who are vendors, you ought to consider Allen’s words carefully since all future library-developed systems will develop an organic preference for providers that integrate into these standardized workflows. Libraries will gravitate to workflows and processes that enable enhanced user experience satisfaction and our clients expect to know how the “getting” is going. And of course the clients themselves will gravitate to requesting the library expend the materials budget on items when they know their itemgetting is empowered with accurate and helpful information. (Just for the record the battle cry of “it’s in the OPAC!” is not the definition of user satisfaction.) In other words, a patron should be entering one unified system for all forms of acquiring library materials, whether borrowing or purchasing. The patron will need
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to know what options (read: vendors) they can choose from. And the patron (or the library at minimum) will expect to know how that fulfillment is proceeding. This type of open and accountable patron ecosystem will break the stalemate: the winners are the providers and libraries that serve informed and empowered clients and quickly fulfill patron requests with innovative content. Please note that I said providers since open access eBooks are the perfect initial collaborators for such a unified system. Breaking the stalemate is not a zero-sum game. There is plenty of room for both open access initiatives and paid resources. There is a need for the traditional monograph but also a wealth of possibility with the enhancement of the eBook in a way that leverages its digital nature. The eBook
Against the Grain / April 2022
big deal will continue to exist but we will find new efficiencies in alternative workflows where patron-centered acquisitions will rapidly accrue. Breaking the stalemate means opening new avenues and partnerships and leveraging the many new technologies and processes around eBooks. My personal word of advice: we have barely scratched the surface of what the eBook is capable of but we are beginning to explore those new frontiers. The eBook ought to be a significant generational leap over the print book (or I should return to the business of interlibrary loan mail bag opening and vacuuming) in creation, access, discoverability, content enrichment, and user experience. The future is encouraging because there is so much unrealized potential. Let us break the stalemate.
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13
The Public Knowledge Project’s Open Monograph Press By John Willinsky (Khosla Family Professor and Associate Dean for Student Affairs, Stanford University) <willinsk@stanford.edu>
W
hile much progress has been made by academic libraries, societies, and groups of scholars in supporting the publication of independent journals, giving rise to the Open Access Diamond Journal phenomenon (no charge for authors or readers), the same is not true of books.1 Scholarly books would appear to require a publishing house to produce such works. Well, in that regard, Open Monograph Press (OMP) offers a publishing house in a box. Only there is no box. And the house is virtual, but within it one can see the scholarly book through to publication. OMP is actually an open source software file — called a tarball — made freely available by the Public Knowledge Project (PKP) at Simon Fraser University. First released in 2013, OMP brings to scholarly book publishing the design principles and technologies of PKP’s Open Journal Systems (OJS), which was released a decade earlier and the Diamond Open Access journal set’s preferred platform, according to one study. OMP can be downloaded from PKP to any web server with a few basic requirements in place, such as a recent version of PHP, the open source — noticing a pattern here? — scripting language. It comes with an installation script that enables the server admin to set it up, assign it a URL, and designate a “press manager” who will go on to create the online publishing house. The press manager fills in the name of the press, the scope and purpose of its publishing program, its affiliations, and other details. She registers the editorial team with OMP and selects one or more of the 28 languages for which the community of OMP users have provided for others to employ with this software. She can turn to OMP’s internal help system, or seek extended advice on starting and operating a press to be found at the PKP Documentation Hub. Once the basics are in place, the press can open its doors online. We’re talking about more than just another pretty website (although it is open to customization and artful design). The entire editorial, production and publication process takes place through the OMP platform. In one secure place, OMP manages people, roles, and access rights, publishing processes and dashboards, while keeping a running record of what needs to be done and an active catalog of published works. It is like a nonproprietary version of Atlassian Jira, the work management software, for scholarly books. With the press online, authors can begin to submit manuscripts and edited collections in response to calls for submissions and as a result of editors soliciting manuscripts. Submissions are assigned to editors, who then consider whether they are suitable for the press and thus merit review. If the manuscript is passed on to the review stage, the editor, author and reviewers are guided through the peer review process. That is, editors call on prepared emails for soliciting reviewers, whether new reviewers or already registered and rated. The email invitation takes reviewers right to the manuscripts and provides a spot for the review (and possibly review forms). The editor can selectively or entirely share the reviews with the author, along with advice and counsel on how best to utilize
14 Against the Grain / April 2022
the reviewers’ comments, while keeping the process anonymous on both sides, if desired. The author can upload a revised version of the manuscript, vastly improved as a result of the reviews (at least in my experience as an author), for the editor to initiate another “Open round of reviews or to accept the manuscript or, alas, to reject the Monograph manuscript at that stage, which will Press offers a then be archived, if there is no book publishing house to be found within its pages.
in a box. Only If following review and revisions, there is no box. the manuscript is accepted for publication, OMP offers a meeting And the house p l a ce fo r t h o s e a s s i g n e d t o is virtual.” marketing and sales, for artworks and permissions, tables and figures. OMP has a separate stage for managing the back and forth of copyediting with the author, as well as one for the production and design of the book, whether for print or in an eBook format. It offers a book catalog system for marketing the books, along with options for offering open access, and arranging print-ondemand, as well as doing Amazon placement. Up to this point, the principal users of OMP have been academic libraries. Within the Library Publishing Coalition, which provides a great deal of support for both journal and book publishing from among its community members, of which 16 university libraries offer an OMP installation to their community. Among those using OMP, Windsor & Downs Press, which is part of the Illinois Open Publishing Network, offers its books free to read online, with print-on-demand options. In Denmark, Aarhus University Library Publishing Services provides readers with open access not only to monographs and anthologies, but also to conference proceedings, dissertations, and working papers. Scholarly communication librarians have taken to hosting monograph presses for the use of their faculty at a variety of institutions. These library-hosted presses have enabled a flourishing of open access monographs that would not have otherwise been published, whether in Canadian archeology or Mexican geography. Among Spanish-language presses, the Universidad Cooperativa de Colombia’s Ediciones has over 130 titles made freely available in its catalog. And while the most popular book at the Portal de Libros Electrónicos de la Universidad de Chile is the 2015 atlas entitled Insectos de Chile, this OMP installation also shares treasures from the university’s rare book collection, such as the Historiae mundi published in 1582 by Cayo Plinio Segundo. All told, just over 60 OMP presses published more than five books or other items in 2020. Beyond the library-hosted OMP is Mandela University Press, in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, offers its books for sale on Amazon paperback and Kindle, Google Books, and JSTOR. As well, the scholar-operated Language Science Press offers its books both as free PDFs and hardbacks at Amazon, while also hosting a collaborative-reading PaperHive.
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A New Type of Transformative Agreement for Research Publishing in Biology “A sustainable path to open publication of biomedical research is a long-sought objective among the many science communication initiatives at Cold Spring Harbor. Our transformational offerings provide a model for any research-intensive institution whose scientists wish to make their articles openly available in these long-established, prestigious, not-for-profit journals.” — Dr. John Inglis, Publisher of CSHL Press, co-founder of bioR χiv and medR χiv
Turn your subscription license into an OA publishing license — Immediate benefits for your authors and no extra cost for most institutions Subscribers to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press (CSHLP) journals who renew for 2022 now have the option to adopt a Transformative License Agreement. This allows corresponding authors from your institution to publish unlimited OA articles (once accepted for publication), while giving your users access to the complete collection of CSHLP journals. Transformative license agreements offer a fully OA publishing option for your researchers whose papers are accepted at Genes & Development, Genome Research, Learning & Memory, RNA, and Molecular Case Studies. Benefits include: • Unlimited open access publication in CSHLP research journals • Access to the complete collection of CSHLP journals • No additional cost for most current subscribers (some minimums apply) • bioRχiv at your institution: ° receive a branded channel on bioRχiv for preprints posted by authors at your institution (includes medRχiv postings) authors can save time when posting to bioRχiv by also transmitting a paper to any of more ° than 180 journals from 50+ publishers Present your institution as an “end to end” open access advocate for the biological sciences.
For complete details, including specifics for your institution, visit https://bit.ly/cshlpressopen
If that sums up the what of this book publishing platform known as Open Monograph Press, what then of the why? That is, why has PKP created an open source online platform for managing book publication? One important factor for us was an interest in balancing the support we offered for moving journals to online open access with what we might do for books.2 This seemed especially urgent, to me at least, because of the declining place of monographs in library collection budgets, dating back to the 1970s.3 This gradual depression of the market for scholarly books had profound implications in fields such as history and economics for what topics and areas of study were pursued at book-length.4 What we imagined OMP bringing to this disturbing decline in the place of learned books was a means for scholars to take matters into their own hands. They need not depend on a journal-centric publishing marketplace. We had seen OJS used to assert this sort of scholarly independence earlier with, for example, the International Journal of Žižek Studies or the S: Journal of the Circle for Lacanian Ideology Critique. The commitment and dedicated efforts of these scholar-editors, following what we now call the OA Diamond model, seemed no less applicable to the publishing of monographs.5 When it comes to the fate of the monograph, what is at issue, for me at least, is the unit of thought. In that regard, I find monograph a misnomer. Scholarly books certainly bring a singular focus and constancy of theme to their topic. Yet as their expansiveness ranges over facets and through histories, it seems a multivariate monotheism at best. That such works remain integral to the intellectual enterprise of academic life is reason enough for tool builders and platform developers to serve such ambition. It has become our work to advance an openly knowing future through such infrastructure.
Endnotes 1. Arianna Becerril, Lars Bjørnshauge, Jeroen Bosman, Jan Erik Frantsvåg, Bianca Kramer, Pierre-Carl Langlais, Pierre Mounier, Vanessa Proudman, Claire Redhead, and Didier Torny, The OA Diamond Journals Study, Science Europe, 2021, https://scienceeurope. org/our-resources/oa-diamond-journals-study/. 2. John Willinsky, “Toward the Design of an Open Monograph Press,” Journal of Electronic Publishing 12, no. 1, 2009, https://doi.org/10.3998/3336451.0012.103. 3. Bernard M. Fry and Herbert S. White, “Impact of Economic Pressures on American Libraries and Their Decisions Concerning Scholarly and Research Journal Acquisition and Retention,” Library Acquisitions: Practice & Theory 3, no. 3-4 (1979): 153-237. 4. Darnton, Robert, “A Program for Reviving the Monograph.” Perspectives 37, no. 3 (March), 1999 http://www.historians.org/perspectives/ issues/1999/9903/9903PRE.CFM. 5. John Willinsky and Ranjini Mendis, “Open Access on a Zero Budget: A Case Study of Postcolonial Text,” Information Research 12, no. 3, 2007: 12-3. http:// informationr.net/ir/12-3/paper308.html.
Save the Date: May 11-12, 2022
CHARLESTON IN BETWEEN A mini virtual "in between" conference An update on the Clarivate/ProQuest acquisition from last year’s Charleston In Between, Exploration of consolidation and competition within the industry at large, and Efforts by ResearchGate and Elsevier to host the content of other publishers.
Visit https://bit.ly/chs-in-btwn for details!
16 Against the Grain / April 2022
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Direct to Open Add Your Support Today Join the Big Ten Academic Alliance, Johns Hopkins University Libraries, University of Toronto Libraries, MIT Libraries, and more. Support Direct to Open by June 30, 2022 to receive exclusive benefits including access to backlist/ archives and trade collection discounts.
Direct to Open harnesses collective action to support open access to excellent scholarship. When successful, D2O will: • Open access to all new MIT Press scholarly monographs and edited collections (~90 titles per year) from 2022 via recurring participation fees. • Provide participating libraries with term access to backlist/archives (~2,300 titles), which will otherwise remain gated. Participating libraries will receive access even if the model is not successful. • Cover partial direct costs for the publication of high-quality works that are also available for print purchase.
https://direct.mit.edu/books/pages/direct-to-open
Pressbooks Reflects on a Growing Movement and How Librarians Can Move OER Forward By Leigh Kinch-Pedrosa (Pressbooks) <leigh@pressbooks.com> and Travis Wall (Pressbooks) <travis@pressbooks.com>
T
he open education movement has been around for over two decades, with much of its early efforts emerging out of the work of the Hewlett Foundation, David Wiley, and other innovators. In 2014, creators of open educational resources (OER) — like Lumen Learning, run by David Wiley, and BCcampus, an organization that supports post-secondary learners and institutions in British Columbia, Canada — started using Pressbooks to create and optionally host their content. These people and organizations saw the absurd rate at which the price of textbooks was growing, the impacts those prices had on the quality of students’ lives, and the challenges these costs present faculty in their choice of material. They found an alternative: free and open textbooks hosted natively on the web. Not only did these early adopters concern themselves with the cost of textbooks, but they also made transparency of the publishing process a key element of their best practices, thus ensuring the quality of OER could be assessed by librarians and faculty who might adopt and adapt those materials. Eight years after those early adopters began their OER creation projects, Pressbooks now hosts OER for over 100 institutions across North America.
when creating collections that not only take the content into account but that are attentive to the institution’s budget. The open movement has emerged as a way of addressing this ongoing challenge by tackling costs through pragmatic grassroots efforts, such as workshops, university pilot projects, collectively developed textbooks, and other collaborative endeavors to share open resources in and out of educational institutions. In recent years, these grassroots efforts have become increasingly common and accepted approaches in higher education, and OER has consequently found a place as an integral part of institutional strategies.
This article — positioned from the standpoint of an outside organization supporting the work behind OER — will briefly describe OER as a solution to problems of cost and accessibility faced by students, faculty, and librarians; highlight areas for improvement in OER creation with the goal of improving its viability; and encourage librarians to integrate OER into their workflows. The goal of this overview is not to encourage educators and librarians to renounce traditional publishing models or abandon existing methods for creating collections. Instead, we propose that, by including OER in the development of syllabi and collections — whether that is by adapting established content or creating new OER — faculty and librarians can improve access to affordable, approachable, and relevant educational materials.
With this history in mind, advocates for open education like Pressbooks ask “why not adopt, adapt, or create your own content?” As the price of learning resources and the cost of growing and maintaining collections remains high, educators and librarians can achieve a lot by taking an open approach. The right open tool can equip libraries to address crucial accessibility issues from the high cost of textbooks to the paywalls impeding students and researchers from accessing the materials they need to succeed academically. As an established partner for library publishers working to advance open “Why not principles, Pressbooks offers free adopt, adapt, or and low-cost eBook creation and create your own content hosting solutions that can help librarians develop and circulate content?” valuable resources to the students and faculty they serve. When Hugh McGuire first launched Pressbooks’ core open-source product, the Authoring & Editing Platform, the use case he envisioned was not in the education space. He imagined small presses using the platform to produce books in multiple formats. But, when the need became clear, he pivoted to the education space, hiring Steel Wagstaff to help shape the product for the needs of open education practitioners. Wagstaff, who holds a Masters of Library Information Studies, was an early adopter of Pressbooks in the higher education space, using the software for his open education work as the instructional technology consultant at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Informed by the work of Wagstaff and his peers at other institutions of higher education as well as McGuire’s knowledge of open source software and community building, Pressbooks integrated open practices — like the use of open licenses, the ability to easily clone and adapt material, and the high importance of accessible design — into the design of the software, providing a low-cost solution to the high cost of educational material.
Those who work in academic libraries — as well as the faculty and students they serve — are keenly aware of the problem of cost in higher education. Textbooks, online exercises, and Learning Management Systems (LMS) can be prohibitively expensive, especially when many students already struggle to pay tuition. When building syllabi, faculty have to strike a balance between providing a robust selection of learning materials and the cost of said materials. Equally, librarians must make careful decisions
There are a few definitions of OER that circulate in open education and open access circles. Foremost among them is that of David Wiley, Chief Academic Officer at Lumen Learning, which uses the “5Rs” to define the ways practitioners engage with open content: the right to retain, revise, remix, reuse, and redistribute content that is released under an open license or is public domain.1 Another commonly cited definition comes from UNESCO and contextualizes OER within the different kinds
From our vantage point as an outside vendor that has grown up alongside a nascent OER movement, we’ve watched the work of multiple OER hubs — higher education institutions and their libraries like University of California-Berkeley, Michigan State University, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Ryerson University, and many more — as they grow, iterate, and collaborate. Librarians have been the driving force behind the open education movement since the very beginning, having managed to start, fund, and manage OER publishing programs all over the world. They have worked tirelessly to create, distribute, and advocate for OER. But there’s still so much to do.
18 Against the Grain / April 2022
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of content: “Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching, learning and research materials in any medium — digital or otherwise — that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits no-cost access, use, adaptation and redistribution by others with no or limited restrictions. OER form part of ‘Open Solutions,’ alongside Free and Open Source software (FOSS), Open Access (OA), Open Data (OD) and crowdsourcing platforms.”2 These definitions help us see some of the common use cases of OER, including open pedagogical projects that incorporate contributions from students, localizations of major open-licensed textbooks, and the addition of interactive activities using webbooks in place of homework platforms. This proliferation of ideas, goals, and formats has allowed for some incredible work in pedagogy and publishing. There is a whole network of open educators — many of whom have found each other on Twitter, at conferences, and in library email listservs — who are working together to test new ways to use OER to achieve their goals. And, because they collaborate between institutions in community of practice, they draw on multiple perspectives to enact the possibilities of OER. Given that the open publishing process does not always include editors, peer review programs, and other elements of book production, some might wonder how practitioners ensure the quality of OER. The reality is that it is ensured the same way it would be in a traditional publishing house, albeit out in the open, which arguably assures greater accountability. Take peer review for instance. Rebus Community (the executive director of the Rebus Foundation is also the chief executive officer of Pressbooks) outlines the peer review process in The Rebus Guide to Publishing Open Textbooks (So Far),3 a repository of collective knowledge around OER publishing. The Open Education Network offers further guidance in their Pub 101 course.4 These are but two examples of resources that instruct OER creators on how to conduct a transparent peer review process, which ultimately allows the open process to be more accountable than traditional peer review. OER is also subject to classroom and accessibility reviews. It is common practice for creators to include review statements within books so that librarians and the faculty they support can make their own determinations around the validity and rigor of the review process. In short, OER is subject to the same quality checks as traditional textbooks, but practitioners are often more transparent about the kinds of reviews that the materials have undergone. Another great strength of OER is its use of open licenses, which are what enable its thriving community of academics, librarians, instructional designers, and other researchers to iterate on each other’s work. Open licenses, or Creative Commons licenses, have fewer restrictions than traditional copyright. While the exact restrictions are specified by the author, they typically allow the original work to be copied and modified. This gives OER creators the freedom to build upon existing work. For instance, a textbook might be developed by faculty at one university, reworked for the curriculum at another, and a third might add instructional videos or other content. It ultimately results in a project that is greater than any individual institution might have the resources to produce. OER platforms like Pressbooks make it easy for users to clone existing OER and modify them as necessary. When content is cloned, the license is cloned too (unless the content is All Rights Reserved, in which
20 Against the Grain / April 2022
case the cloning capabilities are not enabled) and information about the book’s source is automatically added to the book information that is visible to all readers. OER creators also have the option of mixing and matching content, taking parts from a variety of resources and putting them together in the form of a new book. All of this is powered by the people who create or contribute to these resources. OER already offer incredible features for incorporating content like quizzes, flashcards, interactive videos, and other elements that educators can use as formative assessments into their courses.5 As part of the H5P PB Kitchen program run by BCcampus, the nursing textbook Vital Sign Measurement Across the Lifespan received an update that added 122 activities, changing the textbook from a flat webbook into an interactive piece of courseware similar to homework platforms offered by traditional textbook publishers.6 Textbooks like these make it possible for faculty to provide a free or affordable alternative to “inclusive access” options provided by traditional textbook publishers, which offer webbook versions of their textbooks, enhanced with interactive activities, and are billed automatically to all students enrolled in the course for which the book is assigned. Although inclusive access is less expensive than the large hardback books, it comes with its own problems, including limited, time-bound access (i.e., students only have access to the material during the time they are enrolled in the class), and a lack of control around how to buy and use the resource (students cannot purchase the material second-hand, share it with others, or resell it after).7 With interactive open textbooks like Vital Sign Measurement Across the Lifespan, students get unlimited access to material and can assess their learning in a variety of modes, and faculty can remix and revise the content to suit their classroom contexts. Of course, there are problems with open educational resources that remain unresolved. There is significant labor in the creation of open textbooks that falls primarily on the instructing faculty and their supporting librarians (see Rebus Community’s Office Hours discussion on the “Invisible Labour of OER” for accounts of the work various OER creators and support staff contributed).8 Many OER are funded by small grants provided by libraries, many of which cannot cover the entire scope of the costs that go into the creation or adaptation of these resources. Furthermore, OER do not have the marketing resources their competitors in the traditional publishing world can deploy. Finally, much of the metadata associated with these resources is created by the authors and may be incomplete, making it difficult to index the resources within the systems of many academic libraries. The full text may not be searchable, and without complete metadata, finding the right OER can be a challenge. There are several ways that OER can improve in the near term. First, having complete metadata is a simple way to enhance OER’s discoverability. Complete and accurate metadata also allows for advanced search tools, which empower librarians and faculty to sift through an ever-growing list of OER to find just the right resource. With consistent metadata, OER could be better integrated into traditional library indices as well, eliminating the need to search a variety of different portals. While there are many ways to encourage creators to complete their metadata, simply emphasizing its importance would be an easy start. Librarians play a pivotal role in providing guidance to faculty and are in an ideal position to remind them to think beyond
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their own use case: Although a project may be intended just for a single course, there is a whole community of OER creators who may also benefit from that same resource. Metadata such as the subject and a clear description can help others find it when the time comes. Another opportunity for improvement is through better version tracking. The ability to facilitate iteration and collaboration is one of OER’s great strengths, and version tracking would allow us to get a clearer view of all the incredible ways that creators have adapted or modified OER to suit their needs. Finally, as the interactive features available for OER continue to be developed, it will become even easier to use OER in the same way that the big publishers have created homework platforms. Many instructors have mixed feelings toward their institution’s LMS due to its clunky, complicated controls and feature bloat. By integrating more coursework into OER, instructors and students could enjoy a simpler, more streamlined way of learning and submitting coursework online. The more commonplace OER become, the more value they will offer as the OER community, collaborative possibilities, and number of high-quality resources continue to grow. Academic librarians play a pivotal role in promoting OER among faculty and other library staff. They are often the first to introduce faculty to the idea of OER, and they are instrumental in suggesting OER for adoption and offering guidance in its creation. Librarians can make OER a regular part of academic research by including repositories in their libguides and offering short instruction on basics such as open licenses and key benefits. OER publishing programs can be housed in the library where authors will have access to both the technology and support to help them succeed. Librarians can also lead by example, actively engaging in the “5Rs” of OER, applying open licenses to their own products, and opting to create or adapt OER for their own projects when appropriate. The benefits of OER are clear. There is a thriving community supporting the use and creation of OER. There is a growing set of best practices behind the work of OER. The open education movement is well-positioned to improve access to educational material for students and faculty and to improve the quality of those materials for a variety of contexts. Now, we need more investment from institutions and other granting bodies to support the work of OER creators, researchers, instructors, and other administrative supporters. Historically, OER practitioners have contributed an excess of hours to the work of OER. OER is often a passion project done on the side for a small amount of money or as a volunteer effort. We are seeing OER become a bigger part of library and librarian mandates, but there remains a significant amount of work that is being done for free and outside of job descriptions. With greater investment in OER, the improvements that need to be made can be made by professionals with the best knowledge and expertise for the task. Until then, there are small ways folk can contribute. Become a peer reviewer. Contribute a chapter. Add OER repositories and referatories like Pressbooks Directory to your libguides. There
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are also more ambitious projects: create a formal OER publishing program, create OER from scratch to fill a content gap where no open resource exists, or advocate for the use and creation of OER in tenure and promotion dossiers. There are multiple organizations that are set up to help build OER publishing efforts on campus, offering professional development packages — like Rebus Community’s Textbook Success Program which has equipped nearly 150 faculty, librarians, and university staff with OER publishing skills to set up, grow, and sustain their open initiatives at their institutions. Programs like Rebus’s provide step-by-step methodologies in a group setting so that librarians and faculty can connect to a broader community of practice. If you do not have the budget for a complete professional development package, there are many free resources that provide guidance for OER practitioners — like The OER Starter Kit by Abbey K. Elder at Iowa State University. OER has always been the product of a community of passionate educators and librarians. This community continues to thrive with each contribution, small and large.
Endnotes 1. OpenContent, accessed February 15, 2022, https:// opencontent.org/definition/. 2. “Open Educational Resources (OER).” UNESCO, August 5, 2021. https://en.unesco.org/themes/buildingknowledge-societies/oer. 3. Elizabeth Mays, Apurva Ashok, and Zoe Wake Hyde, “Peer Review Process Guide,” The Rebus Guide to Publishing Open Textbooks So Far (Rebus Community, September 30, 2019), https://press.rebus.community/the-rebus-guideto-publishing-open-textbooks/chapter/peer-reviewprocess-guide/. 4. “Considering Peer Review: Open Education Network Publishing Cooperative,” University of Minnesota Canvas (University of Minnesota), accessed February 15, 2022, https://canvas.umn.edu/courses/106630/pages/ considering-peer-review. 5. The H5P PB Kitchen, accessed February 15, 2022, https:// kitchen.opened.ca/. 6. Kymberley Bontinen et al., Vital Sign Measurement Across the Lifespan 2nd Canadian Edition (BCcampus, January 22, 2021), https://opentextbc.ca/vitalsignmeasurement/. 7. “Decoding ‘Inclusive Access,’” SPARC, accessed February 15, 2022, https://sparcopen.org/our-work/automatictextbook-billing/. 8. Rebus Community, “Office Hours: The Invisible Labour of OER,” YouTube, April 30, 2019, video, 1:00:58. https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=fL9Ep56IFH0.
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Fulcrum Presents the Next Big Thing in Scholarly Communications ... The Book! By Charles Watkinson (Associate University Librarian for Publishing / Director, University of Michigan Press) <watkinc@umich.edu> and Jeremy Morse (Director of Publishing Technology, University of Michigan Library) <jgmorse@umich.edu>
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gap has emerged between the capabilities of the dominant platforms that deliver electronic books to libraries and the digital scholarship practices in which librarians are observing their faculty, graduate, and undergraduate students engaged. The gap is particularly marked in humanities disciplines where an observed preference for reading in print or downloading PDFs to read offline does not equate to a lack of digital sophistication in research. Whether they are using their phones to capture images in the archives or building photogrammetric models of archaeological contexts, all humanities scholars are now, to a greater or lesser extent, digital scholars. Few would probably self-identify as “digital humanists” because their interests are primarily disciplinary rather than sociotechnical. However, they are producing rich, multimodal publishable outputs that the print-facsimile format most eBook platforms deliver does not support. The implications of the trend toward enhanced eBooks and interactive scholarly works for libraries and publishers are outlined in the excellent “Framework for Library Support of Expansive Digital Publishing,” created by Duke University Libraries (https://expansive.pubpub.org/). With the support of significant humanities funders in the USA, the ACLS Commission on Fostering and Sustaining Diverse Digital Scholarship is currently working on how to further support such work, with a particular focus on equity of opportunity to do so (https://www.acls.org/digital-commission-sustainingdiverse-scholarship/). While platforms for online exhibits and non-linear digital presentations have existed for decades (e.g., Scalar, Omeka), humanists have a growing desire to publish traditional monographs that reflect the richness of their research while also getting them academic credit. The impetus to adapt traditional publication modes has opened an opportunity for disruption by new digital platforms developed within universities. These include Manifold (University of Minnesota and CUNY Graduate School), RavenSpace (University of British Columbia and University of Washington), and Fulcrum (University of Michigan). These platforms, developed with support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, combine the best features of the monograph and the ecosystem built around it with the new affordances of digital experimentation. Fulcrum is distinctive because it has been entirely developed within a library environment, making it particularly strongly connected to library systems and values. The platform now supports restricted and open-access collections delivering over 10,000 eBooks from more than 125 publishers to libraries. The platform’s continued improvement and maintenance are managed as a collaboration between the Publishing
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and Library Information Technology divisions of the University of Michigan Library. The Publishing division, also known as Michigan Publishing, comprises the University of Michigan Press, Michigan Publishing Services, and Deep Blue Repository and Research Data Services. Combining a university press that publishes books, a library publishing service with a substantial journals program, and a research data team into a single organizational unit at Michigan may initially sound unwieldy. H oweve r, t h e i n t e g r a t i o n o f “...they are historically separate services allows Michigan Publishing to cater more producing rich, holistically to faculty and student multimodal authors whose research outputs are publishable increasingly diverse and disparate. Fulcrum is a manifestation of outputs that the the strengths within Michigan print-facsimile Publishing, integrating the scholarly format most “narratives” that university presses excel in packaging as books with eBook platforms primary sources and underlying deliver does not research “data.”
support.”
While most of the eBooks currently on Fulcrum are relatively straightforward EPUBs or PDFs, an increasing minority respond to the needs of authors who want to publish data-rich long-form publications. These scholars come from an expanding range of disciplines. Early adopters include practice-based researchers in performing arts, scholars in interdisciplinary fields like American studies, and creators of data-rich publications in fields like archaeology. Most of the elements that humanists want to integrate into their publications so far are digitized images, video clips, and audio files. However, titles on Fulcrum also include numerical datasets, interactive maps derived from GIS data, and 3D models. The platform’s website (https://www.fulcrum. org/) highlights some examples from various client publishers. Each data object is curated in a Samvera Fedora repository layer as a “resource” with its own identifier and metadata. These resources play within the book using a variety of opensource tools. These include AblePlayer for video and audio and Leaflet for images and maps. EPUB.js is the reader utilized to deliver EPUB3 files and knit together the various resources into enhanced eBooks. The Mozilla PDF viewer enables online reading and printing of the less flexible PDF format publications. Fulcrum is not an authoring platform (like Scalar or Pressbooks) but nor is it just an aggregator platform (like ProQuest Ebook Central or EBSCO eBooks). It aims to place a professional publishing
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team in control of their own imprint while the Michigan team manages the hosting, including the relationships that ensure preservation, discovery, and distribution to libraries. At its heart is the EPUB3 format, a W3C standard that allows content to be packaged for delivery through traditional information supply chains while incorporating rich media and interacting fully with the entire World Wide Web. If a publisher can create an EPUB3, Fulcrum can ingest it and render all the associated resources. If a new format becomes a feature of scholarship in the future (holographic images, anyone?), Fulcrum should be able to integrate any open-source player into a recognizably book-like object. The modular approach it embodies builds on the opportunities for interoperability highlighted in “Mind the Gap: A Landscape Analysis of Open Source Publishing Tools and Platforms” led by John Maxwell (https://mindthegap.pubpub. org/). Authors in the humanities have been reluctant to embrace digital publishing because of concerns about the longevity of their work and the degree to which they will get credit. These concerns translate into Fulcrum’s four design principles — Durability and Accessibility (to ensure longevity) and Discoverability and Flexibility/interoperability (to provide credit). The team at Michigan has worked actively with other libraries to advance these principles within the community so that humanists can feel safe in pursuing their digital publishing ambitions. Durability, especially the challenges of curating enhanced eBooks, has been at the heart of a project led by the New York Division of Libraries in collaboration with Michigan to enhance preservation services for new forms of scholarship. This project has recently created valuable “Guidelines for Preserving New Forms of Scholarship” (https://preservingnewforms.dlib.nyu. edu/). These have been developed through analysis of real enhanced projects from UBC Press, NYU Press, University of Michigan Press, University of Minnesota Press, and Stanford University Press by a team incorporating CLOCKSS and Portico. With the support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, work is continuing to explore how introducing best practices to authors early can improve the preservability of enhanced publications. Fulcrum’s preservation policy incorporates the findings of this work: https://www.fulcrum.org/preservation/ Accessibility is closely linked to Durability because digital preservation tools can more easily parse an eBook that has been well-described and structured to enable screen-reader software. During the platform’s development, Fulcrum underwent detailed evaluations by Michigan State University’s Usability and Accessibility Research Consulting service to ensure that all its tools and workflows considered Accessibility front and foremost. The workflows to create the EPUB3 format for new titles published by University of Michigan Press on Fulcrum earned the Press the distinction of being the first monograph publisher
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to achieve Benetech’s Global Certified Accessible status: https://bornaccessible.benetech.org/certified-publishers/. The platform’s accessibility policy captures continued work on making the more innovative forms of multimedia content accessible: https://www.fulcrum.org/accessibility/ The Discoverability of enhanced eBook content poses a challenge for libraries. If there is a print version of a book, this will show up in acquisition tools like GOBI or OASIS and make its way into the library catalog. However, OASIS and GOBI will currently not reliably indicate the availability of an accompanying open access eBook edition. If a book is electronic only and open access (as many interactive scholarly works are), the path into a library catalog is unclear. Because these book-like works have an ISBN, they will at least appear in databases such as WorldCat. Still, the individual components will regularly not be represented unless there is manual intervention by the acquiring library or the vendor is particularly attentive (SirsiDynix has done outstanding work in this space). NYU Libraries, Penn State University Libraries, Columbia University Libraries, and the California Digital Library are working with LYRASIS and Fulcrum on this area. Authors increasingly request usage data resulting from good discovery to bolster their promotion and tenure cases. Providing this is the focus of the Open Access Ebook Usage Data Trust project, supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and led by the University of North Texas Libraries and Educopia Institute. This project aggregates open access usage data from multiple platforms and reports that data to publishers: https:// educopia.org/data_trust/. While they are in healthy competition for resources and clients, community-led, open-source platforms like Fulcrum, Manifold, and RavenSpace are owned by the academy rather than commercial entities. Ultimately, success is measured by how their services advance scholarship rather than deliver a financial return. This difference in incentives does not mean they are morally superior to commercial platforms. Still, it does enable a more profound commitment to transparency and interoperability (part of Fulcrum’s Flexibility design principle). Because it is engineered to be a modular component of the larger ecosystem rather than an end-to-end solution, Fulcrum actively collaborates with other open-source platforms. Why recreate the wheel when one can boost the success of another open-source product? For example, instead of extending the platform to create yet another option for journals, Fulcrum integrates deeply with Janeway, built at the University of London. Currently, the Fulcrum team is working to develop rich connections with its sister Manifold so that publications offered through the platform can appear in collections offered for sale to libraries. It is also collaborating with Humanities Commons so that individuals with profiles on that social network can gain authenticated access to restricted-access collections on Fulcrum or display usage statistics from their books in those collections.
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Where’s my stuff? A First Attempt at a Multi-supplier “My Account” Area By Allen Jones (Director, Digital Library and Technical Services, The New School) <jonesa@newschool.edu>
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hen library discovery systems directly link to materials, the user experience can facilitate research in some truly amazing ways — whether it’s owned material or material housed in evidence-based or demand-driven collections. However, when materials are not readily available or library intervention is required, the discovery service can launch patrons into a myriad of acquisition, interlibrary lending, and fulfillment web forms that are difficult to navigate at best. If you want a book or a physical item, check our consortial lending service (usually with some ironic name like EZBorrow, BorrowDirect, UBorrow, TexShare, etc.). If an available copy isn’t in that system, users may recommend an item for purchase in the collection or search a union catalog such as WorldCat to make the request in the library’s interlibrary lending service. Unfortunately, the experience of requesting articles and book chapters is no better. If the required citation or content is not in the full-text subscriptions of the library, patrons may be directed to an external web form to fill out a page for their article/book chapter of interest. If they are lucky, an OpenURL will populate the fields of that form so users do not have to cut and paste values into the search form. If such a link does not exist, users must
resort to manually entering citation information into the fields of the request form, frequently leaving out identifying information such as serial and book identifiers like ISSN and ISBNs. At The New School libraries, five different web forms exist to request materials: recommend a purchase, the Relais D2D EZBorrow catalog (later ReShare), the ILLiad-based interlibrary loan request forms, links or widgets from libguides, and links from WorldCat. Having too many different methods to perform the same website task has been found to increase cognitive load, make your site harder to learn, and ultimately lead to user frustration (Wong, E., https://www.interaction-design.org/ literature/article/user-interface-design-guidelines-10-rulesof-thumb). In Jakob Nielsen’s seminal article on the ten usability heuristics, the author emphasizes two key heuristics that highlight major sources of frustration for website users. First, our patrons use other Internet sites more than they use our discovery service. To the extent that library systems follow navigational conventions and outcomes followed by other online services (called natural mapping), it’s easier for users to have a positive, consistent experience with the interface because it
Figure 1
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Figure 2
matches their preexisting understanding of how websites work (Nielsen, 2020). To the extent that these conventions are not followed, users will spend more time focusing on the interface itself than engaging with content. The second heuristic focuses on efficiency and the need to hide complexity/advanced functionality from the newly visiting user, offering services and shortcuts to more advanced users, but hiding complexity until a user’s experience with the website becomes more advanced. This may include strategies such as keyboard shortcuts or hidden features that bundle a number of actions together (such as pre-selected filters when a user logs in, etc.) for advanced users. Having too many of these services upfront makes for even more complicated navigation for undergraduate, and even graduate-level users because it may not be clear which service/function to use when. One area where this is particularly the case is in the requesting of materials. Because of the different systems that libraries employ, it can be increasingly difficult for patrons to find out how complete their request for content is. Similar to Amazon, patrons do not care about the seller of the goods within their marketplace. Rather, they want to know four basic elements about their order: how long they will have to wait, what format the item will arrive in (electronic or print), where to go to retrieve their order (physical location or link), and where to check the status of their order when there is a delay (and
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there will be delays). This type of progress tracking and status updating, particularly by incorporating direct communications for exceptional situations like delays, ultimately increases the engagement of the platform with web visitors (Rosala, M., 2019, https://www.nngroup.com/articles/status-tracker-progressupdate/).
The Evolution of Acquisition and Delivery Services Below is a graphic of a typical journey of a user request in a discovery system looking for a particular citation. Depending on the user’s entry point, they would have to know whether to request a book in the correct requesting service. If it was a book, the user would be directed to the consortial returnables network. If it was an article, book chapter, or scan, they could be directed to ILLiad. While there might be different iterations of this within local institutions, the basic structure remains the same — the user had to use a system, not find the item, then make a decision about where to place the request next. Depending on where they placed the request, the information necessary at point of order — how long to wait, what format it will arrive in, where to go to pick it up, and the order’s current status, could live in different systems. (See Figure 1 on page 25.) Because each of these suppliers has their own status messaging application, it’s difficult to ascertain how a user might track the status of their request without advanced knowledge.
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At The New School, we reconfigured our request workflows to travel through Atlas System’s ILLiad software to consolidate requests into a single queue (course reserves still have their own interface because of the link to the learning management system). Whether the item is a book, book chapter, or article request, all requests are submitted from the discovery layer or an openURL link to ILLiad. Using addons for suppliers, ILLiad moves the request from supply network to supply network in order to minimize the user’s confusion of navigating error screens to move to the next borrowing network. Users are notified via email when their material arrives with instructions on how to pick up their material. (See Figure 2 on page 26.) Regarding the check on request status, with a single point to check, we have begun building and testing an eshelf application that checks the status of transactions within ILLiad. This application offers the ability to download completed requests, filter active, canceled and historical requests and sort by title, date submitted and request type. (See Figure 3 below.) While the current application states the request status, a subsequent version will include the request state within the larger completion process. The next iteration will have the following flow for each request to illustrate to patrons how far off their request is to completion. While any ILL librarian can tell you the location of a particular item is far from linear, the basic steps of receiving an order, sourcing, shipping and available for pickup mirror stages users might experience within ecommerce platforms they use on a daily basis:
This type of customization would not be possible without the infrastructure of ILLiad to “normalize” all of the different request suppliers into common workflows and taxonomies. Collocating all of these services into a single platform is not a substitute for interoperability and library choice of request processing platform. We are thankful to Atlas Systems to provide these APIs and addons as a method of communication with their system. However, by relying on their webAPIs for this functionality, a different customization would have to be written for each request service platform (if vendors were open to communicating request information via an API). In a 2021 paper on data portability, interoperability and digital platform competition, the OECD defines three different approaches that libraries and library vendors might take to gain this level of interoperability. This framework is helpful in understanding approaches that library technology vendors have typically undertaken. They offer a third approach, a standardsbased interoperability scenario, that may address some of the entrenchment and hyper consolidation prevalent within the library technology sector. First, vertical interoperability. In this scenario, one vendor owns the entire set of tools that interact as well as the interfaces (APIs) that exchange input and output from each component. The advantage here is that the solution is proprietary and allows for development between the components to be tightly governed by a single vendor. This allows for the fastest pace of development of product to market, but at the loss of transparency and interoperability with systems potentially hosted or developed by competitors. Second, there is horizontal interoperability. Horizontal interoperability allows systems provided by third parties, such as commercial vendors and open-source communities to build
Figure 3
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connections between components. Within the open-source community, this is achieved because code for the system is openly shared and transparent. Within vendor-based solutions, code for systems is seen as intellectual property and connections to external systems can be managed through business relationships. Within this interoperability model, the vendor or developer has the choice around who, and how, to perform information exchange between systems. Either the code is completely available and the burden is on the implementer to perform interoperability, or it is on the vendor to manage the information exchange through a business relationship of agreedupon terms. These types of relationships tend to be under scope/ control/governance of each vendor OR they can be offered to open-source projects as a potential alternative to the vendor’s vertical services. Again, the issue is about the disclosure of the business relationship and not just the information exchange standards. A third form of interoperability exists between these two polar opposite approaches — a standards-based interoperability where vendors and open-source projects conform to an external format and practice governed by a standards organization. Many countries have national information standards organizations such as NISO (https://www.niso.org). NISO is a network of standards organizations working globally between the regional and national standards organizations to define appropriate architectures and protocols for information exchange between systems. This model of interoperability is “open enough.” This model potentially limits vendors to develop software between their own components at their own speed, but they can also provide standards-based interfaces for external partners. For libraries, this approach offers the widest array of vendor partners to choose when looking for a software that delivers a particular type of service. For vendors concerned about a fully open architecture, keys or other forms of authorization can be used to communicate between vended solutions, as long as the license terms are clear between the partners and the library employing the system. In this sense, the business relationship and license terms of API Keys are disclosed to the customer and vendors do not have to create proprietary interfaces for each competitor software. Housing our transactions and workflows within a single system ensures institutions are less likely to migrate away from that platform (sometimes called “vendor or technology lock-in”). However, having a standard, secure way to communicate between the systems could go a long way towards reducing the complexity that users have to navigate in order to answer the seemingly simple question of “Where’s my stuff.” Moving to a standards-based interoperability approach means our library has the choice of components within our technology ecosystem and there would be minimal development if we changed under-lying platforms.
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In a similar way, the Open Discovery Initiative (http:// www.niso.org/standards-committees/odi) seeks to foster transparency between discovery aggregators, content providers and libraries. In this set of recommended practices, content within discovery aggregators can be viewed just as “standardscompliant” as the software we use to search it. When renewing software subscriptions, or even content provider licenses, libraries should ask the vendor to provide “Empower their statements on best practice patrons to check conformance (for example, do you the status of offer COUNTER5 statistics?) or Open Discovery conformance. These types their material of recommended practices support requests ... transparency and awareness of empower business relationships between libraries to vendors, their competitors and libraries. By asking for and insisting develop single on conformance statements for web applications discovery services or standards where patron support for software, libraries are exercising their economic power content to choose which components they orders can be wish to employ in their content/ consolidated, and technology ecosystems.
allow vendors As we demonstrated with the ILLiad-based status application and suppliers to example within our Ex Libris communicate.” Primo discovery environment, interoperability can ease the complexity that users have to navigate and provide libraries with the widest choice of features and options for their patrons. I hope there are others within the vendor and library community open to authoring a work item for NISO to consider standardizing status messages between supplier networks using web-based protocols. Such an endeavor would empower patrons to check the status of their material requests from vended platforms or consolidated “My Account” areas, empower libraries to develop single web applications where patron content orders can be consolidated, and allow vendors and suppliers to communicate with one another in new ways. If this is a project you are interested in participating in, please contact the author to begin discussing library and vendor requirements to exchange this information. Bibliography OECD (2021), Data portability, interoperability and digital platform competition, OECD Competition Committee Discussion Paper, http://oe.cd/dpic.
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Reader’s Roundup: Monographic Musings & Reference Reviews Column Editor: Corey Seeman (Director, Kresge Library Services, Ross School of Business, University of Michigan) <cseeman@umich.edu> Twitter @cseeman Column Editor’s Note: I remember the first time I did a Sudoku puzzle. I was at a Cub Scouts event with my young son and one of the other parents gave me a puzzle to try out. It probably was an easy puzzle — as I remember doing it quickly. It wasn’t too long before I picked up a Sudoku puzzle book and the rest is history. For the last 16 years (or so) I started the practice of working on a puzzle or two every night. In our world of great uncertainty, I find a tremendous joy in doing these puzzles. One of the fun elements for me is that there is a definitive answer to each one. And that is one of the reasons why I rarely go to bed without completing a puzzle. Every day, librarians work through a variety of problems. Some of our problems have definitive answers, but far more do not. As we consider library services, collections and personnel, we realize that almost few problems have an answer key. This is definitely the case with our collections. Librarians strive to match resources for our collections with the users that we serve. The challenge here is striving to know about what our community needs and finding the right match in the marketplace.
David, Miriam E. & Marilyn J. Amey (Eds.). The SAGE Encyclopedia of Higher Education. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publishing, 2020. 9781529714395, Online encyclopedia. $756.00 Reviewed by Jennifer Matthews (Collection Strategy Librarian, Rowan University) <matthewsj@rowan.edu> Higher education is a wide-ranging topic that covers many areas and interests from the subjects taught to the fees charged to take those same courses. It ranges from the students that attend the institutions to the individuals that teach the classes, how the institutions are governed and whether or not tenure should still be considered and granted. Then, of course, there is the myriad of aspects related to the business side of the higher education institution that permeate the lives of those connected to the institution in some way. The SAGE Encyclopedia of Higher Education is a reference resource that touches on all of these aspects and more with over 600 signed entries and contributors from across the globe.
That is where our judgement comes in, especially in regards to collections. Librarian reviews are so critical and This online encyclopedia, which is useful in getting a practitioner’s view also available in print, was compiled to of how these resources may be used at address the “current state and practices our own libraries. And that is the joy of higher education around the world.” in editing the Reader’s Roundup. We The editors, Miriam E. David and can help share thoughts on a number Marilyn J. Amey, along with their of new books covering librarianship team of associate editors and advisory as well as those used in our reference board, have created an encyclopedia collections. We have a nice collection that looks to address issues in higher of titles in this column covering education such as academic capitalism, Cosmo the cat is not very good at Sudoku information literacy, deficit thinking the marketization of the institution, puzzles — Picture from January 19, 2020 — in academic libraries, online learning sustainable development goals, rising Seemingly a million years ago. and digital resources. In addition student fees, performance indicators, reference books on higher education and Frederick Douglass. open access, research output criteria, and many other topics pertinent to the higher education scholar and institution. Special thanks to Ellie Dworak (Boise State University), Jessica Hagman (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), The encyclopedia itself is divided into twelve sections that Julie Huskey (Tennessee State University) and Jennifer Matthews encompass the Reader’s Guide. These sections incorporate the (Rowan University) for the reviews that appear in this issue. We organizing principles of the editing team and include topics such have a much bigger column setup for the next issue with more as the analysis of higher education, curriculum, governance, works on librarianship and reference. and leadership. Additionally, the editorial board compiled an appendix that contains key international organizations If you would like to be a reviewer for Against the Grain, please and associations of research, personnel, or professionals from write me at <cseeman@umich.edu>. If you are a publisher and across the globe for those that live, work, and research in higher have a book you would like to see reviewed in a future column, education. please also write me directly. You can also find out more about the Reader’s Roundup here — https://sites.google.com/view/ The typical entry for the encyclopedia, in this case modeled squirrelman/atg-readers-roundup. by the entry “Participatory Leadership,” contains the articles written by authors Delores E. McNair and Jacalyn M. Griffen with Happy reading and be nutty! — Corey a hyperlink back to the A to Z listing of topics. It also provides a
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general subject entry, here General Education, Higher Education (general), and keywords (organization). For citation purposes, one is able to click a link to get the print page numbers and there are also hyperlinks to jump to the various sections in the article which, in this case, are “Overview,” “Origins and benefits,” “Higher Education Contexts,” and “Final Thoughts.” Each article provides the user with the opportunity to add to favorites, download the article, cite in their preferred citation style, share via a variety of social media or email, alter the text size, and share a permalink if desired. The user is also able to search the text within the entry if necessary. Accompanying the entry is a bibliography of resources and both at the top of the article and at the bottom one can find links to the preceding and following article. Finally, there is also a subject index provided for users so that they can browse in that manner, if they are unsure of the topic that they are pursuing at first glance, though this index is not hyperlinked. The SAGE Encyclopedia of Higher Education is relatively easy to use and offers all of the normal tools one has come to expect of an online resource for an ebook and reference resource. The one down side is that the subject index is not dynamic and interactive, making it less useful as a tool for the online version as it would be in print form. The twelve guiding principles make it easy to determine at a broad level where a particular topic might be discovered. Additionally, the search box works quite well for terms that cannot be found via the topic route. Articles are well written and documented with a breadth of coverage internationally. For programs with graduate level education departments, this would be a useful resource for students beginning the journey in higher education to determine what direction they may want to take their studies or focus. ATG Reviewer Rating: I need this in my library. (I want to be able to get up from my desk and grab this book off the shelf, if its not checked out).
Guide to the ATG Reviewer Ratings The ATG Reviewer Rating is being included for each book reviewed. Corey came up with this rating to reflect our collaborative collections and resource sharing means and thinks it will help to classify the importance of these books. • I need this book on my nightstand. (This book is so good, that I want a copy close at hand when I am in bed.) • I need this on my desk. (This book is so valuable, that I want my own copy at my desk that I will share with no one.) • I need this in my library. (I want to be able to get up from my desk and grab this book off the shelf, if it’s not checked out.) • I need this available somewhere in my shared network. (I probably do not need this book, but it would be nice to get it within three to five days via my network catalog.) • I’ll use my money elsewhere. (Just not sure this is a useful book for my library or my network.)
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Goldstein, Stéphane (Ed.). Informed Societies: Why Information Literacy Matters for Citizenship, Participation and Democracy. London, UK: Facet Publishing, 2020. 9781783304226, 272 pages. £74.95 ($101.99). Reviewed by Jessica Hagman (Social Sciences Research Librarian, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) <jhagman@Illinois.edu> This volume is an edited collection of works that advocate a stronger connection between information literacy and politically engaged citizenry in pursuit of stronger democratic societies. Editor Stéphane Goldstein is Executive Director of InformALL, a UK-based consultancy firm and community interest company, that partners with organizations like IFLA, SCONUL, and Jisc as well as universities to develop research and policy around information and digital literacy. The book is divided into four sections, beginning with two chapters that examine political theory and the relationship to information literacy. In the second section, authors focus on individual information practices. Chapter author Andrea Baer proposes intellectual empathy as an additional element to information literacy instruction to help students identify how social identity influences the processing of information. Chapter author Stephan Lewandowsky draws on cognitive science to examine the “post-truth” era and the consequences of misinformation saturated politics. In the third section, the authors explore the realm of international and national policy, with chapters written by Reggie Raju, Glynnis Johnson, and Zanele Majebe who argue for the importance of information literacy in the school and public library systems of developing democracies. In this section, John Crawford also describes several efforts to develop national information literacy policies in the UK and Europe, but notes that such projects are continuously under-resourced, leaving them ill-equipped for the challenges of modern misinformation. The final chapters conclude with examples of information literacy among specific demographic groups. In the final chapter, Bill Johnson turns our attention toward a group that has received relatively little attention in writing about information literacy, at least compared to their younger counterparts: older adults. Johnson proposes the use of Freire’s critical pedagogy to identify and challenge cases of policy that is informed by “ageist misinformation” (p. 219). Similarly, Konstantina Martzoukou recounts efforts in Scottish libraries to offer information and welcoming and safe space to new Syrian refugees. This collection is a welcome reminder that the information literacy practices embedded in our day-to-day interactions in libraries are influenced by the policies and discourses of national politics, even though this connection may not always be obvious. Goldstein positions information literacy as an explicitly political concept, and argues that information literacy is vital to the development of a “healthy, inclusive, participatory society” where decisions are informed and based in “judicious and discerning information behavior” (p. xxv). This connection is reinforced throughout the contributed chapters, making it a useful work for those who argue for information literacy work at organizational and local levels, and beyond. The collection is largely based on the assumption that with sufficient application of information literacy, citizens can be steered towards correct interpretations of political scenarios
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and to make “optimal decisions” (p. 76) once they are correctly informed. This undercurrent leaves little room for addressing cases where there is unlikely to ever be shared understanding of what counts as evidence for the truth of a situation, as we see with the continued debates over the administration of COVID-19 vaccination and where evaluation of information sources is bound tightly with partisan politics and beliefs about science, autonomy, risk tolerance, and social responsibility. Exceptions to this tendency include Baer’s chapter on intellectual empathy that encourages a turning away from adversarial models of argument that prioritize winning over deepening understanding, and that ultimately reinforce existing power structures. Similarly, Andrew Whitworth, in a chapter on the discourses of information literacy, cautions against our tendency to treat information literacy as a “fixed point” rather than as a concept that is itself wrapped up in structures of power and authority. Those who find themselves on different sides of debates about monumental issues like climate change, legacies of racism and colonization, or COVID-19 responses no doubt consider themselves well-informed. Information literacy is one important strategy making a critical exploration of what it means to be informed and how those ideas are embedded in policy making and political discourses. This work provides case studies and a timely exploration of the link between information literacy and politics, making it a valuable addition to the literature in the role of information literacy in addressing societal concerns. ATG Reviewer Rating: I need this in my library. (I want to be able to get up from my desk and grab this book off the shelf, if it’s not checked out.)
Heinbach, Chelsea, Rosan Mitola, and Erin Rinto. Dismantling Deficit Thinking in Academic Libraries: Theory, Reflection, and Action. Sacramento, CA: Library Juice Press, 2021. (http://www. libraryjuicepress.com/) 9781634000956, 145 pages. $28.00. Reviewed by Jennifer Matthews (Collection Strategy Librarian, Rowan University) <matthewsj@rowan.edu> Academic libraries are routinely in the business of trying to prove their value to the academy. In so doing, the library also risks perpetuating many of the harmful practices that we, as librarians, also wish to terminate. These practices include the repression of marginalized groups, hidden curriculums, stereotypes, and deficit thinking. Deficit thinking, itself, can contribute to each of these categories and can be defined as “an unintentionally harmful mindset that aims to support students by attempting to ‘fix’ their perceived shortcomings” (p. 1). Libraries are not immune to this practice and, often, make claims of neutrality not realizing that this “further contributes to the marginalization of certain populations and maintain(s) the power of their oppressors” (p. 32). Dismantling Deficit Thinking in Academic Libraries: Theory, Reflection, and Action is written by a trio of academic librarians. Chelsea Heinbach and Rosan Mitola are both from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Heinbach is the co-founder and editor of The Librarian Parlor and Misola oversees the Mason Undergraduate Peer Research Coach program which works with first-generation students and incorporates peer-learning around the research experience. Erin Rinto is from the University of Cincinnati and is interested in peer-assisted learning and the integration of high impact practices into library services.
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Heinbach, Mitola, and Rinto have compiled a work that looks to aid libraries and librarians with dismantling deficit thinking through the use of educational theory. They use the constructs of constructivism, funds of knowledge, open pedagogy, critical pedagogy, asset-based pedagogy, and culturally relevant pedagogy to demonstrate how libraries and individuals can examine both themselves and their environments to remove this way of thinking. Additionally, Heinbach, Mitola, and Rosan have included sections from practitioners that incorporate these pedagogical methods in their teaching. This demonstrates to the reader how it can be applied in practice — a demonstrable method of praxis rather than just suggestions that are untried and untested. Included in each section of the book are sections entitled “Reflections” that have also been combined into a “Reflective Inventory” in the back for easy consultation. These reflections are so that the reader may assess their own praxis while considering the models and pedagogical theory presented in each section as ways to dismantle deficit thinking. Some of these questions are more deeply personal than others and could be uncomfortable for the reader to consider, but as many of the practitioners, and authors, remind the reader, the questions lead to a more thoughtful and complete journey should one decide to undertake the process. Additionally, Heinbach, Mitola, and Rosan have included lists of practices in the various sections as a way to illustrate how one might enact the pedagogies they are recommending. Some of these practices are from other scholars in the field while many are from the authors themselves. Regardless, these examples help bring the dismantling aspect alive in a way that just advising the reader does not such as recommending peerto-peer activities as a way to incorporate and illustrate that students have a rich foundation of knowledge. As the authors allude to early on in the book, libraries and librarians who wish to dismantle deficit thinking in their environment need to be willing to undertake the work both with themselves and in their environment. This volume provides the reflective thinking and theory to allow one to begin such a journey along with a reading list to expand upon your knowledge of both the theories and deficit thinking. ATG Reviewer Rating: I need this on my desk. (This book is so valuable, that I want my own copy at my desk that I will share with no one.)
Hess, Amanda Nichols. Modular Online Learning Design: A Flexible Approach for Diverse Learning Needs. Chicago: ALA Editions, 2021. xiii, 128 pages. 9780838948125. $65.99 (ALA Member $59.39) Reviewed by Julie Huskey (Head of Cataloging, Tennessee State University, Brown-Daniel Library, Nashville) <jhuskey@tnstate.edu> Amanda Nichols Hess has a PhD in educational leadership and is the e-learning, instructional technology, and education librarian at Oakland University in Rochester, Minnesota. Although online library instruction materials have existed for almost as long as there have been library webpages, they have received more attention since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. As librarians’ instruction duties increase, there is renewed focus on streamlining the development of instructional materials. A modular approach, as Hess develops in this work,
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can save librarians time and allow a better-defined instructional mission. The author states: “The central ideas [of the book]... were about how I could make whatever I had created — either independently or in a design team — simpler and straightforward to update when content changed, a learning need emerged, or another instructor or group of students could benefit from the resources (xi).” The phrase “redesign, not reinvent, the wheel” appears several times throughout the book, and that could well have been its subtitle. Of the nine chapters in the book, six could apply to all instructional materials, not just modular ones. The more foundational topics — such as instructional design, the use of feedback for evaluation and assessment, identifying collaborators and other stakeholders, and making materials accessible — are discussed succinctly and competently. The remaining chapters (“Modifying and Adapting Existing Content,” “Flexibility in Action,” and “Forward Thinking for Future Modularity”) are specific to the modular design advocated by the author. Modular instructional materials require more documentation than materials that are not meant to be reused. For instance, the developer must record usage rights, connections to professional, course-level, and institutional goals, and technical requirements. Hess includes checklists and charts to help the reader through the steps of creating new content, identifying existing content, and combining modules as necessary. Each chapter returns to three scenarios that differ in the extent of the resource and the number of people involved in their development: one “smaller-scale” project (conducted by a solo librarian), one “medium-scale” project (with three librarians), and one “larger scale” (requiring several committees and other subgroups). The ten-page bibliography includes the most prominent works on library instruction from the past fifteen years. Although Modular Online Learning Design covers virtually every aspect of developing and adapting learning material, it is heavier on theory than on practice. The lack of detail in the examples limits the book’s usefulness for casual users. For the librarian who is serious about developing and using modular content, however, it is an excellent starting point. We may well see other books inspired by Dr. Hess’s short volume. ATG Reviewer Rating: I need this in my library. (I want to be able to get up from my desk and grab this book off the shelf, if it’s not checked out.)
Tanner, Simon. Delivering Impact with Digital Resources: Planning Strategy in the Attention Economy. London: Facet Publishing, 2020. 978-1-85604-932-0, 244 pages, $84.99. Reviewed by Ellie Dworak (Research Data Librarian, Albertsons Library, Boise State University) <elliedworak@boisestate.edu> Memory institutions are organizations that exist, in part, to manage and maintain public knowledge. These days, these institutions are under considerable pressure to assess and demonstrate impact to funders and other stakeholders. Strategies that these establishments use to measure the impact of physical offerings are not easily translated to digital environments. For example, with multiple devices becoming the norm for these institutions, visitation statistics become difficult to interpret. At the same time, the digital environment offers new opportunities for audiences to engage with content that can be harnessed to demonstrate engagement. In Delivering Impact
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with Digital Resources, Simon Tanner seeks to offer a framework that can be used in a variety of contexts to evaluate ways that digital offerings impact communities and individuals. Simon Tanner is a Professor of Digital Cultural Heritage and Vice Dean at King’s College London. His research over the past twenty years focuses on strategy and impact measurement for digital collections. As an open access and open research advocate, Tanner founded the Art for All campaign (artforall. org.uk), which advocates for GLAM organizations (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums) in the UK to offer free and unfettered public use of digital collections. He also maintains an active professional blog, When the Data Hits the Fan! (simontanner.blogspot.com), which receives upwards of 75,000 hits per year. This book is roughly divided into two sections, with the first four chapters dedicated to discussions and analysis of topics surrounding digital resource development, assessment, and strategy. These chapters provide a relatively deep survey of the landscape within which the BVI (Balanced Value Impact) Model operates, with topics such as the origins of impact models, challenges posed by the attention economy, and lenses from which value can be framed. The writing in these chapters is remarkably clear and concise, making it excellent introductory material. At the same time, the author writes with a breadth and depth of perspective that makes the work of value to even seasoned practitioners. Of note is that while this book is written from a United Kingdom and European perspective, the author considers and presents the material in a way that translates across contexts and cultures. The second half of the book is dedicated to practical explication and illustrations of the BVI Model, a framework developed and honed by Tanner over the past twenty years. These chapters are, the author tells us, “an attempt to fuse deep theory, experience and practice” (p. xxix). This presents as a step-by-step guide to the BVI Model interspersed with brief guidance on foundational proficiencies such as identifying useful SMART indicators. The content in this half of the book is rich and deep, but those unfamiliar with at least some of the techniques used as a basis for the BVI Model may find it difficult to apply the material the first time around. That said, the author presents learners with many opportunities to expand their knowledge of the topic. The text is supplemented with a rich set of additional tools and resources, made freely available on the website associated with the book (www.bvimodel.org) or the Europeana Impact Playbook (pro.europeana.eu/page/ europeana-impact-playbook), an online publication created as a result of the Europeana Foundation’s implementation of the BVI Model. Tanner does an excellent job of structuring the material so that it can be used as both learning text and reference material. A generous number of figures and tables illustrate the content, and tables of contents are provided for figures, tables, and the case studies embedded in the book. Definitions for key terminology are located at the start of chapters and chapter sections. Finally, brief historical summaries of concepts are rife with references for further reading. Although the book addresses strategy, the title itself is somewhat misleading, as the bulk of the book is dedicated to the identification and assessment of impact, not the strategies required to deliver impactful digital resources. This is unfortunate not because it points to a deficit in the text itself, but in that some readers who may potentially find value in Tanner’s work may not discover its utility.
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Ac a d e m i c l i b r a r i e s w i t h programs related to information science, archival science, museum curation, and related fields will want to have this title in their collection. Practitioners and administrators for GLAM organizations will find value here, but this book also makes excellent professional development reading for librarians from a variety of backgrounds, many if not most of whom have cause to demonstrate impact in a digital environment. Any library professional engaged in assessment, strategic planning, or administering library services will benefit from the background material presented in the first four chapters. ATG Reviewer Rating: I need this on my desk. (This book is so valuable, that I want my own copy at my desk that I will share with no one.)
Williams, Jericho, editor. Critical Insights: Frederick Douglass. Armenia, NY: Grey House Publishing, Inc, 2020. 9781642656657, 273 pages. $105.00 Reviewed by Julie Huskey (Head of Cataloging, Tennessee State University, Brown-Daniel Library) <jhuskey@tnstate.edu> Almost everyone who has taken a course in American history or American literature in recent decades has been introduced to Frederick Douglas, the African-American social reformer who was a national leader of the abolitionist movement to rid the United States of the institution of slavery. While students will have at least some familiarity with the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, his later writings are not as well-known. Not only did Douglass publish two more autobiographies, one of which was later re-released in revised form, but he was prominent on the lecture circuit, he was active in both the anti-slavery and the women’s rights movements, and he served as a diplomat. Douglass also published one novel, The Heroic Slave (1855). This volume of Critical Insights does not ignore the Narrative, but it aims to place it in the context of Douglass’ life, as well as within American history and literature. Just as importantly, Williams and his co-authors call attention to Douglass’ other works, often stressing how astutely Douglass managed his career. Dr. Jericho Williams, professor of English at Spartanburg Methodist College, edits and contributes the introduction, as well as the first of seventeen essays on the works of Frederick Douglass. In “Canonization and Its Discontents: Narrative of the Life in the Context of Douglass’ Intellectual Development, David Lawrimore argues that “the prominence of the Narrative of the Life, which Douglass wrote when he was ‘all of twenty-seven years old and a member of an anti-slavery organization he would soon renounce’ (quoting Robert S. Levine) has the potential not only to overshadow his other important works but to compress his dynamic career into a single moment.” (62) Several essays compare Douglass’ autobiography with that of Benjamin Franklin, as they explore the persuasive strategies
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used by autobiographers. Most writers have a clear audience in mind, and Douglass, as a Black man writing for a primarily White audience, was required to be especially cognizant of his readers. Other contributors help place Douglass in the American canon by discussing his works alongside the prominent voices of Emerson, Thoreau, and Melville. Since slave narratives were not considered “literature” until well into the twentieth century, these essays recast Douglass’ work as a legitimate aspect of the American canon, rather than simply a novelty. Lori Leavell’s “The Anticipatory Life of Frederick Douglass’ July Fourth Speech” describes the milieu of Douglass’ 1852 “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?,” which he presented at an event hosted by the Rochester Ladies Antislavery Society. The irony of slavery in a nation supposedly founded on the principle of “freedom” is a recurrent theme throughout the volume. Especially welcome are several essays on the recent interpretation of Douglass’ works. Robert C. Evans analyzes the reaction to James McBride’s unflattering portrayal of Douglass in the 2013 novel, The Good Lord Bird. The controversies over how history, especially the history of racism in the United States, make Laura Dubek’s “Black Writers Matter: Frederick Douglass in the Literary Present” discussion of children’s and young adult literature on Douglass particularly relevant. The “Resources” section consists of a chronology of Douglass’ life, a bibliography of approximately sixty sources (almost all of which were published between 1982 and 2020), and a list of Douglass’ works. That the essays are consistently well-researched, with frequent references to leading scholars, makes this volume an especially welcome addition to the existing literature. Despite the editor’s goal of focusing more attention on Douglass’ lesser-known writing, the Narrative is nevertheless the most frequently mentioned book, but one hopes that this volume will encourage more scholarship on other aspects of Douglass’ career. It would be most helpful to upperdivision undergraduates and beginning masters-level students, so it is a highly recommended purchase for academic libraries. ATG Reviewer Rating: I need this in my library. (I want to be able to get up from my desk and grab this book off the shelf, if it’s not checked out.)
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Booklover — Rhyme, Russian, Revolution, and Reason Column Editor: Donna Jacobs (Retired, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, SC 29425) <donna.jacobs55@gmail.com>
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his Booklover has been in word heaven lately; so many provocative books have shown themselves to me. It is inspiring. While diligently and thoughtfully working through the pile, there is always space for the next Nobel titles: “Collected Poems in English” and “Less Than One: Selected Essays” by Joseph Brodsky. (Couldn’t make a choice.) Brodsky was awarded the 1987 Nobel Prize in Literature “for an all-embracing authorship, imbued with clarity of thought and poetic intensity.” The forward to the “Collected Poems in English” describes Brodsky as a “world poet.” Expelled from Russia in 1972 after serving a hard labor sentence for a 1964 “social parasitism” conviction; struggling with persecution for his poetry and Jewish heritage; enduring evaluations for the state of his mental health; he came to settle in America with the help of dedicated colleagues. By 1991 he had etched his literary mark in this country and that year was honored with the title Poet Laureate of the United States. Sidebar: After reading this about Brodsky and adding the information to the column I had to stop and look up “social parasitism.” In direct reference to Brodsky, social parasitism was a political crime in the Soviet Union. One could be accused and/ or convicted of allegedly living off of others or society. Brodsky was called a “pseudo-poet” and admonished for failure in his “constitutional duty to work for the good of the motherland.” The Merriam Webster definition is: “a mixobiotic and dependent relation specifically: the relation of various ants that lack a worker caste to other kinds of ants within whose nests they dwell and upon whom they depend for all the services normally performed by a species’ own workers.” Now we know. “The Keening Muse” is the second essay in “Less Than One: Selected Essays” and reads like a love story to Anna Akhmatova. Brodsky met Akhmatova, the renowned Russian poet of the Silver Age, in 1960. She would become his mentor. Brodsky begins with the explanation of how she acquired her pseudonym. Her father didn’t want the family name, Gorenko, associated with the discipline of poetry. Akhmatova reached into her maternal ancestry, “which could be traced back to the last Khan of the Golden Horde…and for a Russian ear ‘Akhmatova’ has a distinct Oriental, Tatar to be precise, flavor. She didn’t mean to be exotic, though, if only because in Russia a name with a Tatar overtone meets not curiosity but prejudice.” “All the same, the five open a’s of Anna Akhmatova had a hypnotic effect and put this name’s carrier firmly at the top of the alphabet of Russian poetry. In a sense, it was her first
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successful line; memorable in its acoustic inevitability, with its Ah sponsored less by sentiment than by history. This tells you a lot about the intuition and quality of the ear of this seventeen-year-old girl “Man is what he who soon after her first publication began to sign her letters and legal reads.” — Joseph papers Anna Akhmatova. In its Brodsky suggestion of identity derived from the fusion of sound and time, the choice of the pseudonym turned out to be prophetic.” He ended his lovely poetic essay tribute speaking of how her poems would stand the tests of time. “They will survive because language is older than state and because prosody always survives history. In fact, it hardly needs history; all it needs is a poet, and Akhmatova was just that.” In addition to his work as an essayist and a poet, Brodsky became fluent in Polish and English with the intention of translating the works of celebrated authors. Because of this refined skill, we have the privilege of enjoying the poet’s own translation as opposed to the skilled effort given by professional translators.
Section X and XI from “The Butterfly” X Living too brief an hour for fear or trembling, you spin, motelike, ascending above this bed of flowers, beyond the prison space where past and future combine to break, or batter, our lives, and thus when your path leads you far to open meadows, your pulsing wings bring shadows and shapes to air. XI So, too, the sliding pen which inks a surface has no sense of the purpose of any line or that the whole will end as an amalgam of heresy and wisdom; it therefore trusts the hand whose silent speech incites fingers to throbbing – whose spasm reaps no pollen, but eases hearts.
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LEGAL ISSUES Section Editors: Bruce Strauch (Retired, The Citadel) <bruce.strauch@gmail.com> Jack Montgomery (Georgia Southern University) <jmontgomery@georgiasouthern.edu>
Legally Speaking — NFTs, Blockchain, and Copyright Issues Column Editor: Anthony Paganelli (Western Kentucky University) <Anthony.Paganelli@wku.edu>
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lockchain technology has begun to enter many facets of businesses, education, and healthcare. The technology that is a secure distributed ledger system has been implemented in various ways to decentralize services, such as the use of Blockcerts in higher education, which was introduced by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2017. The Blockcerts allow students to receive a digital diploma that includes their transcripts from a secured Blockchain system. Upon graduation, students are able to share their digital diploma with the transcripts to potential employers as their official transcripts. This service bypasses the need for the student to contact the registar’s office and pay for their official transcripts to employers for degree verification. Blockcerts is one of many applications that organizations are utilizing Blockchain technology that is beneficial for the organization and those they serve. While Blockchain is most noted for cryptocurrency, there other uses beyond decentralizing services or providing a secure system for businesses. A recent use for Blockchain has been in the realm of entertainment, which is causing some issues that includes the use of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT). This relatively new concept is complicating the already complicated world of intellectual property protection. This column will examine two recent legal issues that involve the popular book and movie Dune and a few other issues of copyright infringement through the use of NFTs. While this paper is noting copyright litigations, NFTs are also an issue with trademarks, as Nike and Hermès recently filed lawsuits in the United States in March.
Non-Fungible Tokens Of course, we have to understand the concept of NonFungible Tokens, which is about as easy as defining the Internet or Blockchain technology. According to Mottet, et al. (2022), “NFTs stand for ‘Non-fungible tokens’ (non-fungible meaning non-interchangeable, a thing that cannot be directly exchanged for something else of equal value). They are digital assets that represent real-world objects like drawings, music, videos, clothes, handbags, etc. They can be minted (created) from any work and are bought and sold online, frequently with cryptocurrency.” These NFTs are creating value, primarily because of the rarity of the item. In other words, the more rare an item is, the more
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value the item is worth. An example of this is the CryptoKitties craze in 2017 that allowed people to purchase a digital kitten through Blockchain technology, which the kitten was specially bred using a computer algorithm that makes each kitten unique and rare. It is the equivalent of Pokémon or Beanie Babies collectibles. In other words, people are purchasing these digital items because they are rare. During the peak of the CryptoKittie craze, some kittens were being sold between $23.06 to $117,712.12 (BBC, 2017). Because these are considered collectibles, people are able to sell to others similarly to baseball cards. This is also an example of how NFTs can become complicated in regards to copyright. Those that purchased a cute picture of a CryptoKittie do not own the image. Instead, those that purchased a CryptoKittie have actually purchased the computer code, which is the same concept of the baseball card. A person that owns a baseball card is typically not the copyright owner of the image of the baseball player. Basically, the token is a certificate of ownership, which is the reason for the recent copyright issues. While an NFT is proof of ownership of an object, it does not mean that the person is the copyright owner, which people are purchasing artwork, videos, literature, etc. and attempting to sell the NFTs. Mottet, et al. (2022) people are making the understanding that purchasing an NFT is considered “buyer beware.” They (2022) stated, “As a consequence, the transfer of an NFT does not automatically entail the transfer of the copyright on the work. Usually when an NFT is sold, what is exchanged is not the work itself nor its support, but the associated unique token. An NFT seller (that is also the owner of the copyright on the work) can, of course, also transfer the copyright to the buyer. However, said transfer must be contractually stipulated in writing.” Of course, this is no clear cut case of copyright infringement should someone sell a token of ownership. As mentioned by Motett, et al. (2022), “Anyone is indeed able to mint an NFT from a work, even if he or she does not own any rights to the specific work. Although this practice would seem to be a clear case of copyright infringement, it is not that simple. Indeed, the NFT is neither the original work or a copy of the work, it is merely a token, a ‘receipt of ownership’ so there is per se no unauthorized reproduction, copy or sale.” Mottet, et al. (2022) also noted, “However, there might be copyright infringement if: The process of minting an NFT
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involves making a copy of the underlying work without the consent of the copyright holder; An image is used as an illustration of the NFT without the necessary permission; The minter of the NFT first creates a digital file of a copyrighted work without any permission; and the metadata does not contain the correct information about the author of the work (violation of the moral rights of the author).”
Dune A recent issue of NFTs and copyright infringement involves the rare book (approximately 10 copies exist) about the filmmaker, Alejandro Jodorowsky and the book Dune. According to Angeleti (2021), “The group Spice DAO planned to sell NFTs based on the contents of the book, which details Alejandro Jodorowsky’s ambitious but failed adaption of Frank Herbert’s sci-fi novel.” The Spice DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) is one of several DAOs that are purchasing rare items and creating NFTs. This organization purchased the book for $3 million in November 2021 at a Christies’ auction in Paris. The intent of the Spice DAO was to place portions of the book into NFTs for sale and then eventually burn the physical copy. Angeleti (2021) noted the organization’s goal to “issue a collection of NFTs that are technically innovative and culturally disruptive, a first-of-its-kind, and that burning the book would be an incredible marketing stunt which could be recorded on video.” The video would also be sold as an NFT, along with a digitized copy of the book for sale. In addition, the organization was going to create an animated series for streaming based on the derivatives of the book. The organization also Tweeted their intentions “We won the auction for €2.66 M. Now our mission is to: 1. Make the book public (to the extent permitted by law); 2. Produce an original animated limited series inspired by the book and sell it to a streaming service; 3. Support derivative projects from the community.” While the intent to place the book online for free is currently available, so this goal is not the issue. However, creating works based on the book’s content is a violation of copyright law. Even though there have not been any attempts to follow through with their goals of producing works based on the contents of the book, it does bring to the forefront the issue of placing copyrighted items into the NFT realm for profit. In other words, Spice DAO thought the purchase of the book entitled them to copyright, but it did not, which has brought a spotlight on NFTs and intellectual property protection as other organizations enter the market, such as Rarible, OpenSea, SuperRare, and Nifty Gateway.
NFT Market and Other Copyright Issues According to Tiwari (2022), “The NFT industry has grown faster than even its participants could have imagined. The market sales surpassed $40 billion in 2021 just on the Ethereum blockchain … The prime reason for this growth is the hype that has surrounded these assets for the last two years from minting platforms, games, marketplaces, exchanges and others.” Tiwari also noted that these platforms have opened a massive issue with scams and copyright violations. Due to this new innovation, the marketplace will have to have further copyright regulations, since this is a space for authors and creators to sell and promote their works.
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Due to the increase of copyright issues with NFTs, there is more awareness to patrol these new mediums. Tiwari (2022) noted that “A platform called GuardianLink is using its proprietary artificial intelligence technology to monitor the web for any duplicate, ripoffs and copy-cat NFTs of the creators using their platform. This enables both creators and collections to protect their NFT assets.” Other issues with copyright and NFTs include several major artists, such as Jay-Z and Quentin Tarantino. According to Hale (2022), “In June 2021, Roc-A-Fella Records initiated a lawsuit against its co-founder Damon Dash for allegedly attempting to ‘mint’ and sell Jay-Z’s album Reasonable Doubt as an NFT. Roc-A-Fella’s complaint alleges that Dash planned to sell an NFT of the Reasonable Doubt copyright through an auction on an NFT platform.” The court agreed that there was the attempt of copyright infringement and barred “Dash from altering, selling, or otherwise disposing of any copyright or other property interest in Reasonable Doubt, including the auction of an NFT reflecting such interest.” Tarantino’s case is a little more complicated because he was being sued by the production company Miramax for his “intention to auction seven ‘exclusive scenes’ in the form of NFTs from his handwritten Pulp Fiction script. Miramax’s complaint alleges that NFTs do not fall under Tarantino’s limited contract rights for the film” (Hale, 2022). This case will be important in how NFTs impact not only copyright but also contracts.
Issues with NFTs Poritz (2022), noted that “Some of the legal liabilities in NFT projects may arise from a misconception that innovations in blockchain technology can replace the legal legwork needed to defend against costly lawsuits, attorneys say.” As noted by Poritz, Blockchain’s ability to create “smart contracts” does not mean that these are actual contracts, which has caused some confusion, and implies that some sellers are attempting sell items without understanding how the technology works. In order to avoid issues of copyright, the sellers will need to clearly indicate all information regarding the NFT. This information will include ownership, copyright or trademark rights, licensing agreements, and other important information to the buyer. The more information provided by the seller will best prevent some issues of copyright infringement. Of course, there will need to be more regulations and best practice standards regarding NFTs in the future.
References Angeleti, G. (2021). Cyrpto group shamed for spending $3 million on ‘Dune’ book, mistakenly believing it had acquired copyright to produce NFTs. The Art Newspaper. Retrieved from https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2022/01/17/nft-groupshamed-jodorowsky-dune-book-copyright BBC. (2017). CryptoKitties craze slows down transactions on Ethereum. Tech. Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/news/ technology-42237162 Hale, C. (2022). NFT Lawsuit Roundup. Frost Brown Todd Attorneys, LLC. Retrieved from https://frostbrowntodd.com/ nft-lawsuits-2022-roundup/ Locke, T. (2021). What are DAOs? Here’s what to know about the ‘next big trend’ in crypto. CNBC. Retrieved from https:// www.cnbc.com/2021/10/25/what-are-daos-what-to-knowabout-the-next-big-trend-in-crypto.html continued on page 38
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Questions & Answers — Copyright Column Column Editor: Will Cross (Director of the Open Knowledge Center and Head of Information Policy, NC State University Libraries) <wmcross@ncsu.edu> ORCID: 0000-0003-1287-1156 QUESTION: An attorney working in a university counsel’s office asks, “Do you have any predictions about how Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson can be expected to lean on copyright cases if she is appointed to the Supreme Court?” ANSWER: This question is one that has been on the minds of a lot of court watchers and policy wonks over the past few months. With Justice Stephen Breyer’s retirement, the Supreme Court lost one of the most knowledgeable and engaged voices it had on copyright issues. Breyer’s deep knowledge of copyright goes back to his early career as an academic before he joined the judiciary. His article “The Uneasy Case for Copyright: A Study of Copyright in Books, Photocopies, and Computer Program” published in the Harvard Law Review in 1970 is often cited as an early and influential critique of copyright expansion. On the Supreme Court Breyer wrote numerous influential copyright opinions including the majority opinion in Kirtsaeng v. Wiley (2013) holding that the first sale doctrine applied to works produced outside the United States with the authorization of the copyright owner, a critical decision for library lending. He also authored last term’s major copyright decision, Google v. Oracle (2021), where the Court found that fair use permitted Google’s replication of Java declaring code in the Android application programming interface. Beyer also wrote or joined several majority opinions supporting stronger applications of copyright including MGM v. Grokster (2005) and ABC v. Aereo (2014). In all cases, Breyer was a consistently thoughtful voice on copyright issues and his retirement leaves a major gap on the Court going forward. As a result, all eyes are on Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, the current (as of this writing) nominee who is expected to be confirmed before the start of the new term. Jackson is highly-respected as a jurist and served as Justice Breyer’s clerk in 1999-2000 so it may be natural to speculate as to how Jackson’s approach to copyright will shape the Court going forward. Unfortunately, we don’t have a lot of information to rely on. While Judge Jackson has heard several cases that touch on copyright, most do not directly address substantive issues in a way that suggests what her approach will be in future cases. Instead, those cases were generally decided on procedural grounds due to failure to state a claim, lack of subject matter jurisdiction, and so forth. The Copyright Alliance, an organization which represents the interests of creators and rightsholders, released a useful overview of Judge Jackson’s record in copyright cases: https:// copyrightalliance.org/president-biden-judge-ketanji-brownjackson/. This resource walks through the cases that Jackson has heard or been involved with and concludes that “while Judge Jackson may have had very few public interactions with copyright law, there is no doubt that she has a firm grasp of the basic principles of copyright law, including copyrightability, registration, and elements in an infringement case.”
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Assuming Judge Jackson does become Justice Jackson, we will just have to wait and see how she approaches cases dealing with copyright issues. One early test case for Justice Jackson is already on the horizon. As highlighted in the “predictions for 2022” column in December, the Supreme Court has agreed to review the much discussed Andy Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith case dealing with fair use of images, a topic not addressed directly by the Supreme Court in many years. By this time next year, we may have a much better sense of how Justice Jackson views copyright and fair use. QUESTION: A librarian asks, “I’ve heard a lot about Controlled Digital Lending in the U.S. How do you think this practice fits with the Canadian law of fair dealing?” ANSWER: The practice of Controlled Digital Lending (CDL) has been discussed in this column in the past. For a refresher you can review the overview and white paper available at this site: https://controlleddigitallending.org/. In brief, CDL is a legal theory that supports libraries loaning print books to digital patrons in a “lend like print” fashion based on the American doctrine of fair use. While Canadian law does not include fair use itself, the Canadian law of fair dealing is designed with many of the same policy goals in mind. Indeed, as noted Canadian copyright expert Carys Craig wrote in a recent Code of Best Practice document, “today, the fair dealing doctrine in Canada is remarkably similar, in purpose and scope, to the U.S. fair use doctrine.” Where does that leave Canadian institutions seeking to apply the principles of CDL in their own legal contexts? In order to answer that question, a group of Canadian copyright experts working on behalf of the Canadian Federation of Library Associations Copyright Committee recently released a paper exploring “the legal and policy rationales for the [CDL] process in Canada, as well as a variety of risk factors and practical considerations that can guide libraries seeking to implement such lending.” The paper, available at https:// papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4031054, walks through the policy purposes that CDL might support as well as the application of fair dealing to common scenarios where CDL may be beneficial for libraries working to meet their mission. It also explores three primary risks associated with CDL: 1) the risk that a library is sued in the first place, 2) the risk that the library loses the lawsuit, and 3) the risk of consequences in the face of defeat in a lawsuit. In order to manage those risks, the paper concludes with a set of recommendations for system design and library policies, collections choices, and relationship to the Canadian Public Lending Right. Overall, the paper offers a detailed and thoughtful guide to controlled digital lending grounded in the specific legal context of Canadian copyright and fair dealing. QUESTION: A faculty member asks, “What’s going on with that professor who is suing their student for posting an exam online?”
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ANSWER: In March it was reported that a business professor at Chapman University had found questions and test prompts from his previous exams posted on Course Hero, a website marketed as a study aid but often used to share exams and other assessments in ways that could be used by students to cheat. Many (perhaps most?) instructors have had this experience, but this professor chose to do something that most do not — he decided to sue the students who posted the materials for copyright infringement.
has declined to participate in the lawsuit in any capacity, so the baseline issues of ownership are not likely to come into play in this case. What may be more relevant is that the stated aims of the professor are so out of line with the purpose of copyright that the case might be filed for what a court considered an improper purpose. As a general principle, litigation solely intended to achieve something totally extraneous to the litigation such as using a copyright lawsuit to reveal the name of an anonymous person online, is problematic.
The professor claims that the lawsuit is necessary because Course Hero will not reveal the name of the student or students who posted the materials. His attorney, quoted in the Washington Post, argued that “he’s not trying to bankrupt his students or their parents. What he’s trying to do is prevent cheating and have a chilling effect on students cheating going forward.” Although the claim does request financial damages, the professor claims that once the names of the students are revealed he will “probably drop the case” and simply turn the students over for disciplinary action with the university.
Whether or not this could reach the level of abuse of process and/or malicious prosecution under California law, a judge or jury may push back on opportunistic litigation that seems to be using copyright law to achieve something copyright is in no way designed to do. While the legal issues are clearly distinct, the first thing that came into my own head when I read this story was the ongoing discussion over strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPP). These suits intended to censor, intimidate, and silence critics have been the subject of much discussion and thirty-one states have developed legislative protections against SLAPP lawsuits.
Regardless of the intentions of the professor, this case is an interesting fit with copyright law. First, it is not entirely clear that the professor actually owns the materials at issue. Assuming the materials are original and creative enough to qualify for copyright protection (not all test questions are) many institutional policies claim copyright in course materials as works made for hire. The question of faculty ownership has always been somewhat blurry with older cases referring to a “teacher’s exception” that exempted lecture notes and related course materials from ownership under work for hire. The 1976 Copyright Act did not include any language on this type of exception and many scholars believe there is no blanket right to traditional academic works unless embodied in a contract, policy document, or other agreement. The Chapman University policy grants copyright to the author for “textbooks or other pedagogical works” but claims all rights in “syllabi and courseware.” The professor has been able to register copyright in the work with the Copyright Office as required to file a lawsuit, which grants him at least a presumption of validity and the university
To be clear, there are significant differences between SLAPP suits, which usually involve frivolous claims of defamation, and this case which seeks to use copyright in order to intimidate and unmask students suspected of academic dishonesty. But opportunistic litigation that bends the law far beyond any reasonable reading of the purpose and policy of that law can lead to whiplash that comes back on the individual litigant or the other stakeholders in their area of practice. Regardless of the legal outcome, it would be easy to imagine the reaction of students at Chapman to this litigation. If the ultimate aim of the litigation is to have a chilling effect on students sharing information about the course, it may succeed in ways beyond the professor’s stated intentions. What student would want to subject themselves to a classroom where they may be subject to opportunistic (and arguably frivolous) litigation by their professor? One can only imagine what the course evaluations will say at the end of this semester...
Legally Speaking continued from page 36 Mottet, A., Santantonio, O., & Meunier, A. (March 7, 2022). What are the copyright and trademark implications of NFTs? Lexology: Lydian. Retrieved from https://www.lexology.com/ library/detail.aspx?g=f4d3980f-d63c-464f-b1b7-e21f184e4584
Tiwari, A. (2022). ‘Wave of litgation’ to hit NFT space as copyright issues abound. Cointelegraph. Retrieved from https:// cointelegraph.com/news/wave-of-litigation-to-hit-nft-spaceas-copyright-issues-abound
Poritz, I. (2022). Caked Ape lawsuits show need for clear contracts in NFT art. Bloomberg Law News. Retrieved from https://news.bloomberglaw.com/ip-law/caked-ape-lawsuitsshow-need-for-clear-contracts-in-nft-art
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Don’s Conference Notes — The 2022 NISO Plus Conference Column Editor: Donald T. Hawkins (Freelance Editor and Conference Blogger) <dthawkins@verizon.net> Column Editor’s Note: The full text of all my conference notes are available online on the Charleston Hub at https://www. charleston-hub.com. — DTH
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he virtual 2022 NISO Plus Conference, organized by the National Information Standards Organization (NISO), convened on February 15-17 and attracted about 650 attendees. In his opening remarks, Todd Carpenter, NISO Executive Director, said that the goals of the conference were to generate ideas and practical solutions to problems. He noted that this approach has been successful; three projects were launched based on suggestions from last year’s conference. This article contains full descriptions of the plenary presentations and brief summaries of the other sessions.
Virtual reality (VR) seems to be where most of the action is today. It has many potential applications in education, medicine, training, engineering, and other fields. According to a consulting study, sales of VR headsets are increasing, as this graph shows. Virtual Reality (VR) Headset Unit Sales Worldwide from 2019 to 2024 (In million units)
Opening Keynote: Welcome to the Metaverse In his opening keynote address entitled “Welcome to the Metaverse: The Profound Consequences of a Science-Fiction Vision,” Dr. Siva Vaidhyanathan, Robertson Professor of Media Studies, director of the Center for Media and Citizenship at the University of Virginia, and author of The Googlization of Everything (University of California Press, 2011), noted that when Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO, recently announced a change of the company’s name to Meta, he did not describe his Dr. Siva Vaidhyanathan vision of a metaverse. Vaidhyanathan characterizes a metaverse as “the operating system of our lives.” A knowledge of the the operating system of a computer used to be crucial because it is its “central nervous system.” Now, however, many of the companies of Silicon Valley are striving to manage, monitor, and monetize everything in our lives, which will be a driving force to growth and is imperative to many companies — even more than profit. The metaverse is implicit in the ideology of our lives: see Neal Stephenson’s novel, Snow Crash (Bantam Books, 1992).
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“Metaverse” is probably more than just really good VR. Augmented reality (AR) with VR is a very powerful combination; AR requires a lens (such as a smartphone) on which information can be overlaid; it is already being applied to displays in automobiles. We are tagging and monitoring the human body and seem to be enthusiastic about allowing the monitors into our lives. Tracking and wearables are becoming increasingly popular. For example, smart clothing that can monitor bodily functions has begun to be used by athletes practicing for a sporting event. We are not only monitoring the performance of the human body but also environments in which the body exists, such as our homes to monitor the performance of our appliances, alarm systems, etc. Cryptocurrencies are becoming a big part of our vision of the metaverse because economies to facilitate exchanges are developing, and they need a currency that is easily managed globally. We are considering all types of human interaction and data flows. In the 1990s, we had the concept of logging on to a distant place such as a chat room or a server, interacting, and then moving away. Such activities were a different part of our daily activities, but since 2007, we have been carrying devices that are always on so VR activities seem outmoded because they are separate spaces. Therefore, there is no longer a distinction between “online” and “offline,” and we have had to make a new start, get beyond the VR picture of metaverse, and look at a fully connected collection of human bodies. Over the next few years, Vaidhyanathan will be investigating the implications of efforts to enhance, embed, and fuse VR, AR, haptics, wearable technology, self-tracking, “smart” devices and appliances and applications, automobiles, “smart” cities, and cryptographic assets. For people with limited abilities, many of these applications will be tremendous enhancements to the quality of their lives.
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We are no longer talking about data and documents because they are not of interest to investors who are more interested in people: managing and monetizing bodies and minds, which is what Facebook, an interactive ecosystem, is all about. We have let companies build their systems to their own specifications to fulfil their own needs and have learned the hard way that there are huge prices to pay. Zuckerberg has done us a favor by letting us ask the basic questions again. We have more awareness now and can ask harder questions with better information to guide the next major technological decisions over the next few decades.
EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) Keynote The EMEA keynote address by Dr. Dariusz Jemielniak, Professor of Management, Kozminski University, Poland and Faculty Associate, Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, Harvard University was entitled “Collaborative Society Needs Institutional Support.” His research uses a big data approach and combines data science w i t h e t h n o g r a p h y. For many years, the information society was more popular on the Internet than the sharing economy, but now everyone is talking about the sharing Dr. Dariusz Jemielniak economy, and it will be the next big thing. PricewaterhouseCoopers has predicted that by 2025, it will comprise half of the economy. For example, Airbnb allows sharing space in one’s house, and Uber is a ride sharing service. We are wired to collaborate which is how the human species has survived. Capitalism makes collaboration a little less natural. The concept of sharing underutilized goods is overrated. Uber and Airbnb do provide added value in their businesses, and they undermine the culture of sharing. Some things have become commoditized, such as water which has become something that we have put a value on. For example, in Europe, it is difficult to get free water in a restaurant. Uber has commoditized rides, and Airbnb has commoditized a place to sleep. Emerging technologies have made direct collaboration possible because they have collaboration-enabling features and allow us to engage bigger and broader populations. A collaborative society is an increasingly recurring phenomenon of emergent and enduring cooperative groups whose members have developed particular patterns of relationships through technology-mediated cooperation. A collaborative society can work when • Work can be easily compartmentalized, • Governance can be reduced to ad-hoc structures, • People can easily join or quit without consequences or long-term commitments, • Personal trust can be replaced with trust in procedures, and • Commitment is voluntary and non-monetary (i.e., a gift, not a transaction)
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Wikipedia is the largest social network on earth, with 43 million accounts and tens of thousands of people editing every month. There are 6 million articles in the English Wikipedia and over 58 million pages total in addition to content pages. It has been shown to be better than the Encyclopedia Britannica, which is now out of business, and many studies have shown that Wikipedia is very accurate. Most of its pages are discussions or thought pages. The lesson to learn is that there is a selforganizing budding social life that is creating this website. To create a successful community, it must be given an agency to create rules and decide how it will be organized. All decisions are participatory; anyone can propose changes and demand answers, and decisions are based on consensus, not simply by voting. Wikipedia cares about verifiability and sources, not truth. (If it cared about truth, we would have to determine what truth is.) In a collaborative society, communities that ignore rules can thrive. We know when a collaborative society can work, but what are the conditions where it will not work? The COVID pandemic has shown us the limits of the collaborative society. In the beginning, people were spontaneously trying to do things such as using 3D printers to make face masks, and there were initiatives to produce them. Other initiatives for the community to organize itself to deliver food, etc. were a typical collaborative society approach. How will we be able to decide which projects were good? The collaborative society is good at organizing people around ideas, but it is not so good at making sure that something is certified. And if something does get certified, what are the logistics of how will it be distributed and what are the legal issues to be considered? These are missing aspects of the collaborative system. Another example is copyright which has been nearly stable for the last 70 years despite the way media are used and shared has changed significantly. The law and the ecosystem are lagging. Who will pay for certification if it is needed, and who will pay the lawyers? There is an enormous potential in a collaborative society to solve problems. We need to be thinking how to make this happen in the future so that the burdens of logistics, legalities, and certification are removed from the people who are organized in the community to produce results. We need to think about how collaborative society initiatives can be supported financially in the areas in which they are not well qualitied.
Closing Keynote: Research Infrastructure for the Pluriverse Dr. Katharina Ruckstuhl, Associate Dean and Sr. Research Fellow, Otago Business School, Dunedin, New Zealand does a significant amount of work with the indigenous people of New Zealand, the Maoris. (The Maori name for New Zealand i s Ao t e a r o a , L a n d of the Long White Cloud.) She began her keynote address e n t i t l e d “ Re s e a r c h Infrastructure for the Pluriverse” with a Maori greeting: “Mihi Whakatau” and Dr. Katharina Ruckstuhl continued with a Maori story of creation from darkness to a new day which is really a journey of knowledge, moving from what we don’t know to what we do know:
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Can modern research infrastructures be effective, not just efficient, in organizing information to reflect the ideology of “right” relationships? What is a right or wrong relationship with the world of indigenous people? Terra Nullius thinking comes from instructions given to Captain Cook: “If you find an uninhabited country, take possession of it for His Majesty.” Lands and other things are alienated by this thinking: one’s physical environment, food sources, traditional labor and economies, personal belongings, and ultimately alienation from yourself as a tribal person. Nevertheless, despite this alienation, communal knowledge has persisted in documents, archives, records, photos, sound recordings, and museums. The impact of Terra Nullius was to transfer knowledge from lands to other people into structures where it could be sorted and analyzed for the purposes of the owner of the infrastructure, such as records published by learned societies. Universality is the idea that knowledge can freely move for the common good. Whose good is served by the “common good”? A pluriverse world is one where worlds external to one another, such as indigenous people and others, can coexist together without one subsuming the others. FAIR principles can overcome some of the complexity in favor of a more standardized approach. The principles of Collective benefit, Authority to control, Responsibility, and Ethics (the CARE principles) coexist with the FAIR principles. Here is how to implement CARE:
• Power and equity are related. Who has the power to implement things? • Policy includes data for governance and giving tribal people the ability to make decisions. • People in institutions work in partnership with the research community. • Process. Communities manage their intellectual and cultural property.
Names have a cultural significance and create a relationship, especially as applied to new lands. Organization is the continuance of right relationships. In a recent book, Elaine Svenonius, The Intellectual Foundation of Information Organization (MIT Press, 2020) said that “A system’s effectiveness in organizing information is in part a function of an ideology that states the ambitions of its creators and what they hope to achieve.” An ideology is defined as a manner or the content of thinking that is characteristic of an individual, group, or culture or a systematic body of concepts, especially about human life or culture. The organization adopted by the Maoris is “Whakapapa” which means placing in layers or stacking flat, and it has led to a number of genealogies or biological relationships. The organizing principles are the maintenance of right relationships with the natural world.
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Internet functionality requires land-based infrastructures; it is erroneous to think of cyberspace as landless. Users can receive input from the community, which is a pluriversal relationship that can be made to work on both sides. We need to recognize connections between people and data. Knowledge allows us to understand different things.
Other Sessions Preprint Review: Addressing Cultural Barriers on the Path for a More Positive and Inclusive Review Ecosystem The growth in the use of preprints has awakened an interest in review initiatives and has opened new ways to review and comment on research works. Preprints are becoming the norm. Many journal publishers use preprint servers to find articles to publish and find suitable reviewers. Reviewers, especially early career researchers, need to be trained. Standards to guide reviewers are needed.
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Alternative Forms of Research Assessment and Impact Examples of alternative forms of research assessment: 1. Tenure guidelines. 2. Practitioner impact for academic librarians. 3. Evaluating journals through DEI values. Open data can help us determine how we practice research. We need to change the ways that we think about OA. The research evaluation process is almost certainly lagging behind the available data; we are not using the data and computational processes to their best advantage.
Wikidata and Knowledge Graphs in Practice Libraries provide content and education that expands the access and visibility of data and research. The people who run the library, the services they provide, and the resources they obtain are not well understood by search engines and indexing software. The concept of “inside-out” resources refers to those that travel outside the library. Knowledge graphs are central to inside-out models. Using Semantic SEO, a library’s website can consist of a graph of pages: about, find, people, requests, resources, services, spaces, with links to Wikidata. Analytics and Benchmarking uses raw data from Bing and Google search queries obtained by web scraping of search engine result pages: Google Analytics provides a look at what users are doing and what the library is acquiring.
Archiving and Digital Preservation The discipline of digital preservation (DP) and risk assessment encompasses all format types. We will never be done with DP. The National Archives and Research Administration (NARA) published its first DP strategy to guide its operations, and it is available on the NARA website. Access is built into NARA’s mission. Standards, data integrity, and information security are major issues in DP. After 2022, NARA will no longer accept physical materials and will concentrate on electronic ones.
Creating a Collections Format Profile • NARA has several electronic records systems: Federal Records, Congressional Records, Census, and two different systems for Presidential records. This meant we had no single profile or measure of what NARA has in its holdings. • A manual process was used to combine reports from all the systems to create a list of the formats in the holdings since the reporting didn’t match in terms of granularity for the various systems, given different tooling for format analysis and reporting. • There were different granularity levels reported for file formats, e.g., files identified as Adobe Acrobat PDF vs. files identified as Adobe Acrobat PDF 1.4. This required normalization when aggregating the data together to compare across the holdings. • Not every file could be characterized and mapped to documented formats with certainty. • Several hundred file formats are present in the holdings if one counts all the variations of PDF or Microsoft Word, for example. • There were discoveries, such as decisions made in the past about format normalization in one portion of the holdings meant to improve access that had to be taken into account.
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DP is not just a technology issue; it is a commitment to users of resources and a set of decisions now and in the future that the content will continue to be accessible and usable. Metadata is important in these considerations, and libraries have a role to play. The Community-Led Open Public Infrastructure for Monographs (COPIM) project is an international partnership of readers, universities, and established OA publishers for preserving OA books. COPIM is dedicated to investigating the difficulties that impede the progress of small publishers interfacing with large-scale organizations and processes.
WHAT WE’VE LEARNED (SO FAR!) • File formats, and how complex digital monographs are packaged, can have a direct impact on level of preservation • PDF’s, while widely used, present complications to preservation • There can be loss of metadata between parties (particularly of concern for small OA presses, who may depend on 3rd party preservation) • There may be specific challenges for small publishers in preservation, in terms of file formats, but also pathways to preservation, and resource • There needs to be a “tiered” approach to best practice guidelines, with this in mind
Archiving and Preservation of Unusual Born-Digital Objects Software is a unique object to preserve. Since different information is added and provided by different programs, it is very important to have access to the original software to ensure that nothing that is presented to the user has changed. Sometimes there is no software that can open a file, so access is lost. For example, there is no software available now that can open Microsoft Chart. Challenges: • Finding legacy software is hard. • Copyright culture and DRM associated with software distributed on installation media. • Lack of comprehensive metadata describing software and its requirements and capabilities. • High variability in computing platforms and software requirements. Tools to capture the necessary knowledge over time are being developed; one of these is EaaSI which provides technology and services for software emulation. The Internet Archive (IA) is no longer the only actor in archiving; web archiving is done in national libraries and community-based initiatives that are continually growing, for example, Archive Team, International Internet Preservation Consortium (IIPC), Documenting the Now, and Common Crawl. National libraries maintain the majority of national web archives.
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In the UK, the British Library has 3 main databases, which overlap partially with each other, as shown here
credited. We need to work collaboratively and know that we can all trust each other. If a research project is not planned and started openly, sharing it can be limited. Researcher awareness of open practices is important.
Centering Interoperability in the Future of Library-Based Publishing The Next Generation Library Project (NGLP) at the Educopia Institute is a collaborative project to improve pathways and services for authors, editors, and readers, and develop service models to empower next generation library publishing. A major expressed need is a unified web delivery platform that includes a journal submission and review module and an institutional repository. Can we build interoperable tools that build on what already works while keeping the door open for innovation? Two main UK institutions that do archiving are the British Library (BL) and The National Archives of the UK (TNA).
A Conversation About Semantic Censorship Word control can lead to censorship. How do we as stewards of information and the concepts represented ensure access to the full range of topical ideas while being sensitive to political climates? Many have reviewed what others should read or watch, such as the Motion Picture Code, when deciding what to include in a library’s collection, or what to publish in a journal. Screening is becoming more critical, and we need to be vigilant about controversial topics and terms that require additional human approval. We need to make a connection between archived content and modern terminology.
The Role of the Information Community in Ensuring that Information is Authoritative Authoritative information has been a challenge since the earliest scholarly publications. Rapid sharing of results during the research process and multiple copies of them on the internet has not made it easy to ascertain what information is authoritative. Peer review, long regarded as the best way to identify authoritative information, is under pressure because of the sheer speed and volume of research. Zooniverse is the world’s largest platform for online crowdsourced research and provides a space for researchers to build and run projects. Dimensions of quality are fidelity (the digital representation of an object), completeness, and accuracy. Open science adoption is a culture change for research. New models of open science in scholarly publication promote rigor.
The State of Discovery Tips for Content Providers — There are 2 types of content providers: one close to the creation of knowledge and the other that selects content from different sources and aggregates it into a single digital space. Digital publishing is a big enterprise, and players must also describe a user journey which tells the providers the path the user takes. The journey is formed both by the providers’ actions and the customers’ choices. Discovery requires that platforms be interconnected with the rest of the user’s ecosystem. Metadata plays a critical role in discovery. Everything that content providers do depends on the available metadata. The needs of users are still evolving today. Personalization is a key part of providing any online service. Mobile is king because it gives users the ability to log on from anywhere. A hybrid model of access is needed in corporate and educational settings; more universities are providing remote services globally. Federated authentication is growing, and there are real opportunities to be found. Trekking Into the Semantic Frontier — New technologies will help promote semantic search. Knowledge graphs can help with search and discovery problems and can be thought of as a crosswalk with a many-to-many relationship. A main concern with information literacy is knowing where we are going and being able to explain that journey to others. Transparency is paramount. When we are teaching literacy, we need to understand the process that created the responses. How can we introduce semantic search into our libraries? We should not have to translate terms for every database, area, or subject because that is something that a knowledge graph can do. EBSCO has an Enhanced Subject Precision feature that expands the user’s search into natural language areas but also points to other subjects that mean the same thing. A “concept map” shows these relationships visually. NISO Plus 2023 will take place on February 14-16.
Approval at the first stage of peer review ensures that authoritative results will be obtained and that publication will be more likely. Trustworthiness of an article is defined by the availability of the data or methods used, peer review information, connection to the journal subjects, and clear retraction notes.
Open Science: Catch Phrase or a Better Way of Doing Research? All players in the science ecosystem should work to ensure that relevant scientific evidence is processed, shared, used ethically and is available, preserved, documented, and fairly
Against the Grain / April 2022
Donald T. Hawkins is an information industry freelance writer based in Pennsylvania. In addition to blogging and writing about conferences for Against the Grain, he blogs the Computers in Libraries and Internet Librarian conferences for Information Today, Inc. (ITI) and maintains the Conference Calendar on the ITI website. He is the Editor of Personal Archiving: Preserving Our Digital Heritage, (Information Today, 2013) and Co-Editor of Public Knowledge: Access and Benefits (Information Today, 2016). He holds a Ph.D. degree from the University of California, Berkeley and has worked in the online information industry for over 50 years.
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The Miles Conrad Lecture
T
he Miles Conrad lecture has been a highlight of NISO conferences, and NFAIS meetings. It was established to honor the memory of G. Miles Conrad who was director of Biological Abstracts, (now BIOSIS Previews). In 1957 he organized a meeting of 14 abstracting and i n d ex i n g p r ov i d e r s to discuss the effects of government investments in science following the launch of Sputnik, and this meeting led to the formation of NFAIS in 1958. The Miles Conrad Lecture began in 1964 fo l l ow i n g Co n r a d ’s death. This year’s Miles Co n r a d Aw a r d w a s presented to Dr. Patricia Flatley Brennan, Director of the National Library of Medicine (NLM). Dr. Brennan received her Bachelor’s degree in nursing from the University of Delaware, and her Master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania. She then entered clinical practice, studied the connections between nursing and information systems, and received her Ph.D. degree in industrial engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In 2016, she became the first woman, first nurse, and first industrial engineer to become Director of NLM.
Dr. Brennan’s Miles Dr. Patricia Flatley Brennan Conrad lecture was entitled “The Role of a Library in a World of Unstructured Data”: Libraries will persist, but the digital objects that must be connected will constantly change, so we will have jobs for a long time. NLM cannot operate alone. We must partner with publishers, authors, distributors, technology companies and our stakeholders. Connecting people with information is a critical and important role in our society, and standards are an important part of that because they bring order to complex information.
The Mission and History of NLM NLM focuses not only on acquiring, collecting, preserving, and disseminating scientific communications, but also on the tools to ensure that it is available. Here are some of the major highlights in its history:
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Serving Science and Society Since 1836
NLM’s collection began on a shelf in a field surgeon’s tent and is now located on the campus of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Dr. AB Lindberg, Dr. Brennan’s predecessor and also a Miles Conrad Lecturer brought a strong focus on innovation into NLM, which developed into the 21st Century library of today.
NLM Today NLM is the world’s largest medical library. It has 8,000 points of presence in the country and answers a million inquiries a day which gives it access to communities. PubMed has 23 million citations. Here is a photo of the NIH campus.
Obviously, COVID has changed the nature of research at NIH. Quick planning of research quickly requires a balance between science and society. NLM has learned much from the COVID pandemic: • Medical information must be complemented by an understanding of the person. • Community norms and privileges intersect with research principles and federal requirements. • Research at the speed of a pandemic goes best when it leverages existing community investments and established research assets, including standards. • We must improve the reproducibility and rigor of research to accurately characterize the experiences of all people in the pandemic and promote a better understanding of the clinical experience by leveraging information. Terminology and messaging standards play an important role. NLM has spearheaded new forms of scientific communication: preprint pilots, a public health emergency COVID initiative in which more than 50 publishers participated, making PubMed articles available without charge, and a global health events web archive which contains over 12,000 items of born-digital resources.
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Research at NLM NLM has 3 pillars in its strategic plan: accelerating discovery and advancing health through data-driven research, reaching more people in more ways through enhanced dissemination and engagement, and building a workforce for data-driven research and health. NLM is a research organization with an intramural program having branches focusing on computational biology and computational health research, and an extramural national research program. Much of its research focuses on text mining, AI and machine learning, search, retrieval, and presentation of literature. Studies of search results showed that a typical search could retrieve from 20 to 40 pages of results, but usually only the first few pages are read, so efforts were made to list the best results first. Some research in the extramural program goes into the community: • Google Street View images were examined to characterize built-up environments and determine health outcomes. • The Bridge2AI project promotes the widespread adoption of AI in complex challenges. • AIM-AHEAD is a program to advance health equity and researcher diversity. • The DSI-Africa program will harness data science for health discovery and innovation in Africa and develop solutions for the continent’s most pressing medical and public health problems.
Products and Services NLM is known as a provider of trustworthy health information resources and is the central point of data and information at NIH. It houses and creates high-value genomic, bibliographic, and literature repositories, health data terminologies and standards, and value sets of clinically meaningful indicators that allow hospitals to do quality management and quality improvement. NLM serves millions of people 24 hours a day 7 days a week. It cannot rest even if it has a drop in funding or a sequestration because the world needs it. It uses standards to make data FAIR, promotes access to controlled data sets, and conducts research developing and refining new ways to interrogate data.
NLM builds some standards such as RxNORM which provides normalized names for clinical drugs, but it more often curates and disseminates standards and promotes their use in the research community. Its Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) are widely used to classify and organize the literature. Similar functions for clinical terms include Standard Nomenclature of MEDicine (SNOMED), Logical Observation Identifiers Names and Codes (LOINC), and RxNORM. The MEDLINE 2022 upgrade is designed to make processes more efficient and responsive by automating collection and curation. MeSH citations will appear in PubMed within 24 hours of being indexed, and the automated indexing algorithm is being continuously improved. The most significant challenge today to NLM as a library is novel unstructured data. We will need to think about standards in a new way in the future; they are how we make sense of phenomena. NLM believes that its primary purpose is to enable knowledge building based on core data. Its responsibilities are and will continue to be the acquisition, organizing, preservation, and dissemination of information relevant to health and biomedicine. Partnerships and engagements are necessary to accelerate discovery and make resources available, which cannot be done alone by NLM. It is challenged to help people find meaning from data that is driven by users’ needs. How do we create standards based on ephemera and make them meaningful to more people? We cannot use the same structures that we have used in the past. The answer to a question is one hallmark of a trusted resource. We must evaluate the impact of algorithms on search to be sure we are remaining true and trustable. Trust must rely not only on the correctness of an answer but also on the strategies used to arrive at it. Dr. Brennan writes a blog each Wednesday morning called “View from the Mezzanine” that covers many of the issues she addressed in her lecture.
NLM’s products are widely known: • Clinical trials.gov has data on over 400,000 trials from 50,000 studies. • PubMed and PubMed Central (PMC) are literature repositories. PubMed has over 30 million citations, and PMC has 7 million full-text articles. PMC’s holdings grew over 300% in a 9 year period. • dbGaP is a database of genotypes and phenotypes. • GenBank supports fully computed and annotated gene sequences. • NLM had the first SARS-CoV-2 sequence available within a month of the first case appearing in China. • NLM’s Sequence Read Archive has over 30 petabytes of data and is the largest publicly available repository of high throughput sequencing data. It is now available on the cloud.
Against the Grain / April 2022
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And They Were There — Reports of Meetings 2021 Charleston Conference Column Editor: Ramune K. Kubilius (Galter Health Sciences Library & Learning Center, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine) <r-kubilius@northwestern.edu> Column Editor’s Note: Thanks to the Charleston Conference attendees, both those who attended on-site and virtually, who agreed to write brief reports highlighting and spotlighting their 2021 Charleston Conference experience. The conference moved to a hybrid format in 2021 and that presented both opportunities as well as challenges for registered attendees. All registrants had the opportunity to view recordings, to re-visit sessions they saw “live,” or to visit sessions they missed. Without a doubt, there are more Charleston Conference sessions than there were volunteer reporters for Against the Grain, so the coverage is just a snapshot. In 2021, reporters were invited to either provide general impressions on what caught their attention, or to select sessions on which they would report. There are many ways to learn more about the 2021 conference. Some presenters posted their slides and handouts in the online conference schedule. Please visit the conference site, https:// www.charleston-hub.com/the-charleston-conference/, and link to selected videos, interviews, as well as to blog reports written by Charleston Conference blogger, Donald Hawkins, https:// www.charleston-hub.com/category/blogs/chsconfnotes/. The 2021 Charleston Conference Proceedings will be published in 2022, in partnership with University of Michigan Press. — RKK
CONCURRENT SESSION REPORTS WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2021 STOPWATCH Session 1 — Beth Bernhardt (Oxford University Press, Moderator) Reported by Ramune K. Kubilius (Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine) <r-kubilius@northwestern.edu> Presentations Included the following: The Open Road: Mapping Your Library’s Path Through the OA Publishing Landscape — Presented by Karen Kohn (Temple University) and Annie Johnson (Temple University) Collaborative Clusters: Rethinking User Needs and Breaking Down Barriers — Presented by Jill Dawson (University of North Texas) and Laurel Crawford (University of North Texas) Leveraging Curriculum Mapping to Support Campus OER Efforts — Presented by Jennifer Pate (University of North Alabama) Top 10 Benefits of Using Course List Software to Scale Affordable Learning Initiatives — Presented by Teri Gallaway (SCELC) and Carolyn Morris (SirsiDynix) 2021 Charleston Library Conference: Virtual Meeting Details (pathable.co) This first 2021 conference “stopwatch” session featuring brief presentations was unique among later stopwatch sessions, in that all presenters were on-site (except one co-author who joined remotely). Organized and moderated by the intrepid Bernhardt, the session featured an interesting mix of topics,
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ranging from Temple’s “Open Road” discussions of options for supporting OA publishing, to the University of North Texas collaborative clusters of resources spotlighted in a “pop up” nature, and a curriculum mapping project at University of North Alabama. The institution has an aspirational goal of being 50% OER by 2024, and the mapping project revealed not only traditional materials used for courses, but also the current use of OER. However, some courses using OER were only discovered when faculty were surveyed, but not included in faculty course reading lists. The last presentation featured a “top 10” list of advantages to using course reading list software, a win-win-win proposition for faculty, students, and the library (one product in this marketplace that this reporter noted that was not included in their product list was featured in the 2021 vendor showcase, a new entry to the North American market).
[I love it When We’re] Cruisin’ Together: A Member-Driven Model for Consortial Collaboration Reported by Laura Sill (University of Notre Dame) <ljenny@nd.edu> Presented by Lindsay Cronk (University of Rochester) and Maridath Wilson (Boston University) — https://2021charlestonconference.pathable.co/meetings/ virtual/CABYiKFfBWBMvpqju This session focused on a new project-based approach to negotiation by members of NERL (NorthEast Research Libraries Consortium) in support of its “NERL Demands a Better Deal” and “Preferred Deal Elements” statements, which promote collaboration and shared values. “The Better Deal” moves beyond price and individual preference and highlights agreements that reflect collective values of transparency, sustainability, equity, reproducibility, and flexibility. The “Preferred Deal Elements” include categories of Fees, Term, Opt-in, Open Access, Authorized Users, Author’s Rights, and Content. As a way to provide further context for this member-driven model, presenters Wilson and Cronk introduced the NERL consortium and the journey they took as members to introduce this new model. It started with a “Malibu Dream” or desire to see change resulting in the use of a project-based approach to build a stronger statement for negotiation over the previous method of gathering feedback independently from each member. Audience members asked how coordination between institutional partners takes place and session attendee, Cris Ferguson (Murray State University), joined Wilson and Cronk on stage to share a specific scenario illustrating the budgetary challenges and the tough decisions that are required by libraries due to current resource pricing. Wilson and Cronk believe collaboration and project-based negotiations are required to make a real difference at this time.
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The Un-usability Study: An Analysis of Access Problems Outside The Libraries’ Control
ILL and Acquisitions: Working Together to Get Users What They Need When They Need It
Reported by Lynne Jones (University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee) <jones873@uwm.edu>
Reported by Christine Fischer (UNC Greensboro) <cmfische@uncg.edu>
Presented by Candice Benjes-Small (William and Mary), Mary Oberlies (William and Mary) and Paul Showalter (William and Mary) — https://2021charlestonconference. pathable.co/meetings/virtual/i9Xad3e9ffgS7KPoL
Presented by Michael Arthur (The University of Alabama Libraries) and Emy Decker (The University of Alabama Libraries) — https://2021charlestonconference.pathable.co/meetings/ virtual/28qMdTE4PymGbuCsX
This session was sparked by the frustration that many librarians (and patrons) felt during the early days of the transition to online during the COVID-19 pandemic. The presenters outlined some of the common issues that patrons faced trying to access e-resources and the negative effects on the morale of librarians who had to deal with upset patrons and less-than-efficient software and systems. They point out that when library tools, library-vendor communications, and vendor-vendor communications fail, it erodes patrons’ trust in our services and resources. It pushes patrons toward external resources like Google Scholar and undermines libraries’ efforts to get patrons to use our resources and put into practice the information literacy strategies we teach. The presenters’ hope is that we can move forward with better troubleshooting, more usability studies, more communication, and overall, more empathy to improve the patron experience.
Arthur and Decker presented the plan they have developed to establish a new workflow for acquiring requested collections materials. The collaboration between acquisitions and interlibrary loan departments seeks to improve service and ensure quick fulfillment of resource requests as the Libraries move toward a point-of-need model over collection building, reflecting user expectations and shifts in Liaison roles. The pilot project established criteria for making a purchase rather than a loan, including purchasing selected English-language materials published in the past five years with eBook as the priority over print, and expedited shipping for physical items so users could rely on quick turnaround. Staff can add titles to the DDA pool via their eBook provider and primary book vendor. Communication between the departments is facilitated by use of existing email accounts that are monitored daily. The full implementation will start in January, monthly meetings will offer opportunities to consider modifications to the criteria and workflow, and assessment is planned to begin in April.
How has COVID Affected How we Discover, Read, and Publish Research? Reported by Debra Trogdon-Livingston (Medical University of South Carolina) <trogdonl@musc.edu> Presented by Elaine Devine (Taylor & Francis), Helen Fallon (Maynooth University) and Heather St. Pierre (Taylor and Francis) — https://2021charlestonconference.pathable.co/ meetings/virtual/rCs62iJtq7S5ezDEf Devine, St. Pierre, and Fallon shared perspectives on how COVID-19 affected research experiences at Taylor and Francis and Maynooth University. Devine discussed the importance of being both “proactive and reactive” when planning data needs for future research. Devine shared academic search engine data, bibliographic database usage trends, and described how partnerships and quick reaction time positively impacted data access and procurement. Fallon gave insight into Maynooth University Library user behavior and library response and how measures like scanning service, investment into digital resources, and keeping the library open, helped students to better transition into digital education, grew staff confidence, and “democratized” access to information. St. Pierre discussed how user needs are the backbone of product management work her team does and noted the importance of empathy in supporting a workforce faced with a sudden scarcity of access and resources. St. Pierre suggests using lessons learned to be prepared before possible future emergencies. Each speaker offered insight into their work, enacted a user-centered approach, and highlighted a focus on connection. Conference blogger Donald Hawkins wrote a report on this session: How has COVID Affected How We Discover, Read, and Publish Research? - Charleston Hub (charleston-hub.com)
Against the Grain / April 2022
Conference blogger Don Hawkins reported on this session: ILL and Acquisitions - Charleston Hub (charlestonhub.com)
Where the Rubber Meets the Road: Operationalizing Your Variables for Effective Assessment Reported by Sara F. Hess (Pennsylvania State University) <sfh5542@psu.edu> Presented by Brianne Dosch (University of Tennessee), Rachel Fleming-May (University of Tennessee) and Regina Mays (University of Tennessee) — https://2021charlestonconference. pathable.co/meetings/virtual/fFkaFeSjzcQCcSPec Note: Regina Mays did not present in this session. Fleming-May opened this session by discussing what it means to operationalize variables and why doing so is important. She talked about how by determining how you are going to measure your variables in a research project, you can create a shared understanding and language with your participants that works to improve the meaningfulness of your results. She pointed out that one of the pitfalls of survey-based research is that it can fail to capture the nuances in participant responses and grounded her talk in literature looking at the validity of library use questionnaires. Her points were well-illustrated by a poll of the audience, which asked attendees which of several activities constituted “use” of a library; this poll showed that even among an audience of library workers, publishers, and vendors, there was a need to define library use. Dosch followed with a presentation of her application of these concepts in a needs assessment she conducted among the faculty in her liaison area. She described developing the survey instrument
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in cooperation with faculty in order to best capture what they want and need from the university’s libraries. Context and description were added when needed in order to create a shared understanding with the faculty and she found that this helped produce meaningful and actionable results.
The Unusual Suspects – Collaborating for Improvement with the Pure OA Publishers Reported by Lillian Velez (Dee J. Kelly Law Library) <lrvelez@law.tamu.edu> Presented by Olaf Ernst (Knowledge Unlatched), Katrin Seyler (University of Erlangen-Nuremberg), Adrian Stanley (JMIR Publications) and Matthew Willmott (California Digital Library) — https://2021charlestonconference.pathable.co/ meetings/virtual/a9AD8hsE28RcP9JfD OA is an author-centric process, but this session’s speakers advocate for a balanced approach whereby institutions partner with full OA publishers and libraries to improve efficiency and expediency. This changes the OA movement’s focus from transformation of publishing to collaboration. Applications like OA Switchboard and Oable provide centralized messaging, consistent support, and streamlined processes which result in decreased miscommunication, decreased complexity, and additional transparency. Through centralized hubs, eligibility and funding messages, and backend and specialized reports can be more easily created and communicated. Hubs support pure OA with the goal of making OA the default regardless of publisher. The multi-payer model discussed means libraries fund what authors cannot and force authors to be more engaged with the economics of the system while freeing them from the minutiae of the process. Cascade journals provide a “downstream” place for “rejected” papers: the idea being that a work can be improved and although not suitable for the top tier journal, could be adequate for another title within that publisher’s ecosystem. Thus, publishers don’t let a good one get away. It does, however, take exponentially more submissions to support a cascade journal and writers might be reluctant to settle for a second or third tier journal. Referenced web sites: OA Switchboard https://oaspa.org/oa-switchboard/ Oable https://www.infotoday.eu/PressRelease/Oable-aworkflow-management-tool-for-institutions-engaging-inOpen-Access-activities-beta-launches--51390.aspx “Not Every Publisher Can Support A Cascade Journal” by Phil Davis, January 24, 2018. The Scholarly Kitchen https:// scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2018/01/24/not-every-publishercan-support-a-cascade-journal/
Keynote: How to Think Like a Civilization Reported by Ramune K. Kubilius (Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine) <r-kubilius@northwestern.edu> Presented by Paul Saffo (Stanford University) and Michael Keller (Stanford University, Moderator) — 2021 Charleston Library Conference: Virtual Meeting Details (pathable.co) Saffo’s presentation was scheduled after a few morning sessions of the first conference day had already taken place. It would have been nice to experience him delivering his talk
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live rather than virtually. Still, his keynote remained true to a longstanding conference tradition in that it provided a big picture view, with inspiring quotes and references, as well as thoughts to ponder about the challenging world in which we live (including a role for libraries). An academic-based forecaster who advises corporations and governments, Saffo described himself as a short-term pessimist. Problems are borderless, and libraries are the thin red line in the reality of the H.G. Wells quote — “Civilization is in a race between education and catastrophe.” Our institutions are falling short of meeting global challenges, and libraries are both fire trucks (at the upper layers), and architects (at lower layers). Prompts for action included the Jonas Salk quote, “Our greatest responsibility is to be good ancestors.” Saffo reminded the audience to tell compelling stories, since stories can initiate change. Also — a long-term view can make us comfortable with change. A recording of this keynote is available for viewing on YouTube at https://youtu.be/iPin-yntMAY Conference blogger Donald Hawkins reported on this session: Opening Keynote: How to Think Like a Civilization Charleston Hub (charleston-hub.com)
NEAPOLITAN SESSION WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2021 Controlled Digital Lending is Just Lending, But It Needs Standards Too Reported by Linnea Shieh (Stanford University) <laiello@stanford.edu> Presented by Todd Carpenter (NISO), Chris Freeland (Internet Archive), Jennie Rose Halperin (Library Futures), Sebastian Hammar (IndexData) and Meg White (Delta Think, Moderator) — https://2021charlestonconference.pathable.co/ meetings/virtual/cCvdvj4BivERb34vW Rather than a technical discussion of implementation strategies and standards for Controlled Digital Lending (CDL), the main thrust of this presentation was as a comprehensive advertisement for the merits and utility of CDL. As stated by one of the presenters, realizing CDL as a solution for interlibrary loan is a “light bulb moment” for many librarians, but issues of equity and social justice are also at the forefront. While many libraries are MacGuyvering their own CDL platforms, commercial solutions are also coming online. In 2022, NISO will be working on common vocabulary, codification of procedural norms, and other steps that will accelerate growth and adoption of CDL solutions. The legal issues and copyright battles swirling around CDL were explicitly not discussed.
CONCURRENT SESSION REPORTS WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2021 Be Careful What You Wish For: Post Hathi-Trust ETAS analysis and implications for future monograph acquisitions Reported by Becky Imamoto (University of California, Irvine) <rimamoto@uci.edu> Presented by Ellen George (University of British Columbia) and Arielle Lomness (University of British Columbia, Okanagan
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Campus) — https://2021charlestonconference.pathable.co/ meetings/virtual/x3EENeypcexN8DDXp
and Heather Staines (Delta Think) — 2021 Charleston Library Conference: Agenda (pathable.co)
Note: Ellen George did not present but was available during part of the discussion portion of the session.
Staines opened with an overview of DeltaThink’s annual market survey. The open access (OA) market continues to increase at a dramatic rate: a 25% increase for 2020 over 2019. The market size for 2021 is estimated to be $1.1 billion. She presented projections, such as 50% of output will be OA by 2024. Staines then discussed the concept of “Transformative Journals,” which are a Plan S-driven development. For a journal to be considered a TJ, it must meet annual absolute and relative OA growth targets.
The content of this session was centered by Lomness and spotlighted findings of the institution’s assessment, using Tableau, of the 14 months they participated in HathiTrust’s Emergency Temporary Access Service (ETAS). ETAS made it “possible for member library patrons to obtain lawful access to specific digital materials in HathiTrust that correspond[ed] to physical books held by their own library.” Presenters’ institutions gained digital access to 450,000+ monograph titles from their collections. Findings included: Less than 2% of the titles were used. While that is a small figure, many of those titles received multiple uses. Also, one-quarter of the content (1500+ titles) was used for the first-time in ETAS. Another encouraging statistic: almost 3,400 titles which hadn’t been used in 5+ years, got used in ETAS. This shows, in some cases, a strong preference for electronic format. Nine of the books used the most were listed as textbooks for courses. This signals the importance the service had for students needing access to course materials during the pandemic. The presenters concluded that there is great opportunity to do more with this data.
Open Web Tools Reported by Natalie Henri-Bennett (Auburn University) <neb0021@auburn.edu> Presented by Curtis Michelson (Infodj.io); Gary Price (INFOdj.io) — https://2021charlestonconference.pathable.co/ meetings/virtual/4qqHSkMyGcGuMYGAn The “INFOdjs,” founders of INFOdj.io, reviewed pertinent sites from the curated online list of open access tools they maintain for their professional research. This was the fourth consecutive year they presented this developing resource at Charleston. All 178 sites, sorted into 27 categories, are freely available and do not require a subscription by the end user. Familiar tools like Internet Archive were shown during the session alongside the introduction of lesser-known features. For example, they presented the Wayback Machine’s ability to archive up to 50,000 URLs at a time, ensuring future access to these pages. Some sources of note include the Global Climate Dashboard (a NOAA site documenting climate change), Document Cloud (where journalists share data), Covaxxy (a site that analyzes social media misinformation), and the Resonator (which compiles wiki data with other related resources into a single wiki page). Here is the resource: https://www.infodj.io/ projects-2
CONCURRENT SESSION REPORTS THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2021 A Close Reading of the Six Most Common Transformative Agreements Reported by Allison Langham-Putrow (University of Minnesota) <lang0636@umn.edu> Presented by Jamie Carmichael (Copyright Clearance Center), Charles Hemenway (Copyright Clearance Center)
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Next, Carmichael outlined six types of transformative agreements (TAs), highlighting the complexities of managing payments between institution and publisher. To negotiate and implement these complex agreements, the institution and publisher need to have high-quality data. Hemenway discussed the need for institutions to use “an iron fist” with their authors: require the use of their institutional email address and provide comprehensive grant information. Another topic of discussion was how transformation will be implemented. Staines noted it will be difficult for small libraries and small publishers. Even if all wanted a TA, there is not enough time and energy to negotiate. Finally, there was a short discussion of how TAs fit in the current climate where many libraries are unbundling big deals. Hemenway pointed out that publishers are seeking to retain their current revenue. This tension between libraries, their budgets, and publishers was a theme throughout the conference. It is a thorny issue that certainly cannot be resolved in a single conference! In a nutshell, the common types of TAs are: • Unlimited number of articles • Capped number of articles • Capped spending threshold • Institutional membership providing an APC discount • Consortial agreement using a shared bank or individual funds, may be dispersed in a first-come, first-serve model. • Multi-payer model: institution pays a predetermined amount; author pays the remaining portion
Next Steps in Shared Collection Management Reported by Laura Sill (University of Notre Dame) <ljenny@nd.edu> Presented by Charlotte M. Johnson (University of Pittsburgh, Facilitator), Boaz Nadav Manes (Lehigh University), Heather McMullen (Queen’s University) and Linda Wobbe (SCELC) — https://2021charlestonconference.pathable.co/meetings/ virtual/DXFZNDaTJzYu4s2Xm This session explored the intersection of shared print collections and resource sharing. Questions were posed to the panel by facilitator Johnson regarding opportunities, areas for improvement, and trends in shared print collection management in coming years. The panel agreed that the purpose for shared print collections is rapidly evolving from one focused on collection space to one centered on broader partnerships in areas such as preservation and the use of digital surrogates in resource sharing. Another area to recognize as central to service success is metadata and the interoperability of systems, and
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panelists noted that metadata provides the necessary hook to ensure service and flow from the retention decisions to the use of collections by patrons. Resource sharing has a long tradition of strong service orientation and shared print collections provide another great source for patron resources. Resource sharing librarians and staff should consider being active in the stewardship of shared print programs and advocate along with others to make improvements to the systems and processes that support the intersection of shared print collections and resource sharing.
Managing Open Research: Challenges and Opportunities for the Research Library Reported by Ramune K. Kubilius (Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine) <r-kubilius@northwestern.edu> Presented by Michael Levine-Clark (University of Denver), Elizabeth Lorbeer (Western Michigan University Homer Stryker M.D. School of Medicine) and Judith Russell (University of Florida) — https://2021charlestonconference.pathable.co/ meetings/virtual/Le6RupfDMfFBbT3ok A good start to the session was the reminder that the ecosystem influences researcher actions, that there is external context. Norms may be conveyed by a disciplinary culture. There are also institutional expectations for compliance, metadata, reporting, report management, and data management. Russell described her university’s landscape with 16 departments and an Office of Research. Levine-Clark discussed the use of tools and dashboards such as CHORUS (chorusaccess.org) and the DMP tool (DMPTool) to help manage and meet requirements. Lorbeer shared some challenges for her small health sciences campus that doesn’t have many large grants (eg. from NIH), but the university has entered into some modest read and publish agreements. Breaking even is a goal, as is targeting early career researchers.
Is Collaboration the New Normal? Reported by Natalie Henri-Bennett (Auburn University) <neb0021@auburn.edu> Presented by Matthew Ismail (Charleston Briefings) and Ijad Madisch (ResearchGate) — https://2021charlestonconference. pathable.co/meetings/virtual/KN8aeChiQadaBw4vJ ResearchGate https://www.researchgate.net/ is a collaborative scholarly tool created by three scientists in 2008 to “change the way we communicate science.” The founders (Madisch is a cofounder) sought to share scientific research and offer a forum where scientists could ask questions, communicate insights, and post findings in real time. Madisch stated that in the peer reviewed publishing world, the focus is on research that works. He further argued that knowledge of failed studies is just as valuable for discussion and scientific advancement. This site was conceived with an eye towards these discussions and the vetting of data. While site access is limited to researchers, ResearchGate’s scientific data can be accessed by anyone via search.
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Navigating the Road Ahead (the 21st Health Sciences Lively Lunchtime Discussion) Reported by Ramune K. Kubilius (Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine) <r-kubilius@northwestern.edu> Presented by Lindsay Barnett (Yale University), Tim Butzen-Cahill (Doody Enterprises, Inc.), Karen Gau (Virginia Commonwealth University) and Elizabeth Lorbeer (Western Michigan University Homer Stryker M.D. School of Medicine) — 2021 Charleston Library Conference: Virtual Meeting Details (pathable.co) Note: Irene Lubker (Medical University of South Carolina) and Ramune Kubilius provided brief spotlights; Andrea McLellan (McMaster University), co-author of Lindsay Barnett, was available to field questions. The sponsored but no holds barred session moved at a fast clip, featuring both on-site and virtual presenters. Lorbeer spotlighted recent examples of how health sciences libraries partnered and pivoted in the health sciences education informational landscape. Butzen-Cahill highlighted findings from September 2021 ATG article that he co-authored on the health sciences eBooks landscape, showing some progress in availability and continuing challenges for libraries. Kubilius shared the link (doi:10.18131/g3-txxe-ky26) to a handout in which she spotlighted the past year’s trends (big deals moved to little deals, transformative agreements, growth of OA, etc.). Lubker highlighted two 2021 Medical Library Association (MLA) conference posters of Education Caucus collaborative initiatives - design of an open repository of education resources for health information professionals, and development of a health sciences disciplines information literacy mapping directory. A repository (perhaps external to MLA) is still being sought so the projects can be easily accessed. Barnett recapped findings from a MLA poster presentation, providing updates that showed some progress since May 2021 in the publisher diversity (DEI) policies landscape. Gau spotlighted a small pilot she and colleagues undertook to inform their liaisons of diversity content in newly acquired online books and textbooks. On-site and remote audience questions (fielded by Nicole Gallo of Rittenhouse) showed that interest continues in keeping current on developments in the health sciences scholarly publishing, educational resource, and textbooks landscape, ever evolving as it is. (Presentation slides contain references, links, and more information).
Print & Ebooks: How are Strategies – For Academic Libraries, University Presses, and Vendors – Driven by the Current Necessity of Online Access? Notes from the field 12 months on Reported by Selena Chau (University of California Santa Barbara) <selenachau@ucsb.edu> Presented by Arielle Lomness (University of British Columbia, Okanagan Campus), Dean Smith (Duke University Press), Robert Thiessen (University of Calgary) and Michael Zeoli (De Gruyter Publishing) — https://2021charlestonconference. pathable.co/meetings/virtual/SbJLS8aQAQXAa59Eu This presentation engaged audience members who commented on the need for controlled digital lending of eBooks, continued eBook funding, and automation in the book selection process. Smith attributed Duke University Press’s
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increased FY21 eBook sales to their ability to meet the demand for single titles in new channels such as JSTOR and Project Muse. At the University of British Columbia, OA and new library eBook purchasing models supported new, diverse research and teaching needs but textbook publishers were still unwilling to work with the library to supply eTextbooks at a moderate pricepoint. Tiessen noted that the University of Calgary Library’s ePreferred policy was more successful in Fall 2021: staff waited longer to see if a title came out in print, invested more in eBook packages, and discouraged print reserves. Zeoli of De Gruyter closed out the session with a 30-year overview of the book marketplace. His timeline of mergers, bankruptcies, and new entities in the publishing field highlighted where we are now: academic libraries acquire books in an interconnected ecosystem with multiple supplier integration, cataloging systems, invoice management, and discovery services that developed to support automated selection and delivery in collection management.
Using Data to Drive Decisions: Libraries, Publishers and the New Open Reported by Angela Strait (Marshall University, Huntington, WV) <strait@marshall.edu> Presented by Adam Der (Max Plack Digital Library), Melissa Junior (ASM), Heather Staines (Delta Think), Meg White (Delta Think, Moderator) and Matthew Wilmott (California Digital Library) — https://2021charlestonconference.pathable. co/meetings/virtual/bBoj48w3qeJzqfa3b This panel discussion provides viewpoints from several different areas including vendors and digital libraries. Topics are covered from different aspects of the Open Access realm, including current trends and costs for the publisher, vendor, and libraries who may provide support. It was truly interesting to hear different perspectives on current issues, and what improvements can be made. Data analysis techniques are shared, breaking down different publisher models and what agreements are, in their case, the most popular with users. The panel also discussed the financial impact of open access titles. Since the COVID-19 pandemic started in 2019, open access titles are in much greater demand, and this presentation provides detailed information on how to strategically think through the process of open access acquisitions and usage data. Several files and slide presentations can be found at the presentation link. The chat also contains several helpful links. Conference blogger Donald Hawkins reported on this session: Using Data to Drive Decisions: Libraries, Publishers and the New Open - Charleston Hub (charleston-hub.com)
Diversity in Collections: Challenges for STEM Reported by Jocelyn Boice (Colorado State University) <jocelyn.boice@colostate.edu> Presented by Joel Claypool (Morgan & Claypool), Julia Gelfand (University of California, Irvine) and Sarah Lester (Cal Poly San Luis Obispo) — https://2021charlestonconference. pathable.co/meetings/virtual/T2pNpnCjq4pKhP9WW Featuring the views of two librarians and a publisher, this session provided an entry into current conversations about
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diversity in STEM publishing and library collections. The presenters included content relevant to those selecting library materials as well as those working with library users in an instruction or reference capacity. Beginning with a description of diversity in relation to scientific literature and a list of criteria to consider for collection building, the discussion moved on to examples of projects that incorporated author demographics and equity information into engineering library webpages. The importance of nurturing a diverse author base for STEM fields was also emphasized. Audience members asked insightful questions during the Q & A portion of the presentation, prompting further exploration of topics touched on earlier. The audience inquiries also suggested a keen interest in the role of publishers and librarians alike in diversifying STEM literature collections, as well as a need for practical guidance to accomplish this aim.
Centering Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in Collections Assessment Reported by Angela Strait (Marshall University, Huntington, WV) <strait@marshall.edu> Presented by Summer Durrant (University of Mary Washington), Christopher Lowder (George Mason University), Helen McManus (George Mason University) and Genya O’Gara (VIVA) — https://2021charlestonconference.pathable.co/ meetings/virtual/gA63wLEFcbtyYuBfE Note: This panel discussion was not recorded at the request of the presenters, but presentation slides are available. Panelists discussed a new tool being utilized by the Virginia Academic Library Consortium (VIVA), the Value Metric Tool. While the project of building the tool actually began in 2016, this particular presentation focused on the DEI collection and related areas. The panel outlines the steps taken to develop their plan, speak to stakeholders, and begin the process of analyzing their collection based on the identified values uncovered by the working group. The data obtained was shared and explained, and it was followed up by the pitfalls they discovered along the way as well the identified strategies for next time. This presentation will definitely get your statistical mind working and planning ways to utilize the shared information in your own collection. (Note: The chat provides links to articles mentioned in the presentation that may not be in the slides.)
Funding Open Access: Models, Experiments, and the Future Reported by Linnea Shieh (Stanford University) <laiello@stanford.edu> Presented by Angela Carreño (New York University), Peggy Glahn (Reveal Digital), Sharla Lair (LYRIASIS) and John Lenahan (ITHAKA) — https://2021charlestonconference. pathable.co/meetings/virtual/3hgdNdjRTiPAfSSNh Note: There was not enough time to get to the Reveal Digital talk. As stated in the synopsis, this session consisted of an assortment of talks by leaders in open access publishing, with a strong focus on open books and the humanities. Overall, the takeaway message was that OA publishing is accessible and impactful even in small-scale, community-driven ways. First, we saw a plethora of data from JSTOR on what happened to global
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traffic when they opened several collections, both by converting existing material to open and direct open publishing. One particular pilot publisher (CLACSO from Argentina) has seen 1M item requests for 300 titles just in Year 1. Next, we learned about a COPIM program to help small- and medium-sized presses dynamically scale their volume of open publishing based on membership, different from the usual threshold-based “flip to open” approach. The LYRASIS talk continued this discussion about enabling libraries even with small budgets to provide energy towards values-based publishing.
Not Dead Yet: Is Print Emerging from the Ashes of COVID? Reported by Angela Strait (Marshall University, Huntington, WV) <strait@marshall.edu> Presented by Sara Duff (University of Central Florida), Bob Nardini (ProQuest), Pamela Smith (Ingram Library Services) and Emily Tufts (Ontario Tech University) — https://2021charlestonconference.pathable.co/meetings/ virtual/DXWjW784wj6XNqGoS This panel presentation discusses how book purchases have changed since the COVID-19 pandemic. Perspectives are provided from book sellers and academic libraries. While we all know and have experienced supply and demand issues, our newest global problem, book vendors and suppliers have not been immune. From paper shortages to binding material shortages, new physical book manufacturing has also become an issue. This problem of course snowballs down to libraries. What became apparent as the pandemic continued, was the resurgence of backlist title orders and ebooks. Librarians also shared their strategies for continuing to provide content to their faculty and students through resource sharing partnerships and new publisher and vendor agreements. It is very interesting to learn how suppliers were affected and how those issues affected libraries, as well as how a few libraries found a way to continue providing resources to those who depend on them. (Slides and files are posted in the schedule, with the presentation.) Conference blogger Donald Hawkins reported on this session: Not Dead Yet: Is Print Emerging From the Ashes of COVID? - Charleston Hub (charleston-hub.com)
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Embedding the Library in the Patron’s Workflow: Case Studies from Two Universities Reported by Lillian Velez (Dee J. Kelly Law Library) <lrvelez@law.tamu.edu> Presented by Becky Cottrill (EBSCO), Mathew Hayes (Lean Library), Yisrael Kuchar (Ex Libris), Derek Malone (University of North Alabama) and Emily Coolidge Toker (Harvard Library) — https://2021charlestonconference.pathable.co/meetings/ virtual/qnyhE4BDNnKcSvoed Lean Library is an exciting and potential-filled extension for the internet browser that promotes direct engagement between students and their school library at the point of internet research which for most students is Google or Google Scholar and not the library. If the goal is to meet students where they are, this pop-up certainly succeeds! It makes the library’s presence indelible as the student works, with its configurable school specific branding and the capacity to promote products and services not available on Google or Google Scholar such as the availability of curated collections, library consultations, and full text. The extension offers other opportunities as well for unification, community building, and surfacing underutilized services. According to the Librarian Futures Report, over 80% of students and librarians would invite more interaction. The two case studies from two different schools shows how the Lean Library extension can be employed for slightly different ends and to fulfill specific goals. The library becomes an embedded part of the existing student workflow and decreases clicks and frustration students sometimes go through trying to find full access to a paper that comes up on Google Scholar. EBSCO can also integrate allowing seamless access through the library’s preferred route. Referenced web sites Lean Library https://www.leanlibrary.com/ Librarian Futures Report https://www.leanlibrary.com/ community/librarian-futures-report/ This issue contains the first portion of Session Reports we received from the 2021 Charleston Conference. Watch for the remaining Session Reports to appear in the June issue of Against the Grain. The General Reports were published in Against the Grain’s February 2022 issue (v.34#1, pgs. 30-33) and are available at https://www.charleston-hub.com/2022/03/ and-they-were-there-reports-of-meetings-2021-charlestonconference/. Presentation materials (PowerPoint slides, handouts, etc.) and recordings of most sessions are available to Conference Attendees on the Charleston Conference event site at https://2021charlestonconference.pathable.co/. Or visit the Charleston Hub at https://www.charleston-hub.com/thecharleston-conference/. — KS
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Learning Belongs in the Library — OER and Achieving Wide Faculty Adoption: Three Hurdles By Column Editor: David Parker (Publisher and Consultant; Phone: 201-673-8784) <david@parkerthepublisher.com>
I
am a proponent of open educational resources (OERs) and the role the library plays in increasing faculty understanding of, creation of, and use of OERs. In my role as a product manager at various educational technology businesses, I have presented strategic overviews and business plans to senior leaders to address the needs I see librarians’ facing in growing the adoption by faculty of OERs. And I often consider what we can learn from the rapid growth of open access in scholarly publishing, which has grown much faster in journal publishing than book publishing. There is much the world of OER should learn from the world of OA, including the efforts of publishers to align on metadata standards, business models, and methods for measuring usage and engagement. But the baseline fact that the textbook industry was built on individual students purchasing individual textbooks, whereas the scholarly publishing industry was built primarily on institutions purchasing institution-wide access, complicates the comparison of OER and OA to the extreme. In this column I will focus on three hurdles that I believe must be overcome if OER is to become as widely adopted by faculty as the global university library community seeks. In a future
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column I will explore learnings from the world of open access scholarly publishing that can contribute to the growth of OER creation, distribution, and adoption. The three hurdles are: 1) The impediment to scale that comes with prioritizing individual faculty grants for OER creation. 2) The difficulty created by the absence of cataloging standards and disciplined curation, and 3) The challenge to faculty adoption when a candidate OER textbook lacks the full package of support materials faculty require.
The Downside of Faculty Grants: The absolute volume of funding flowing toward higher education institutions to increase the use of OER has grown dramatically in the past decade. For detail, read any number of the excellent research reports on the growth of OER by Julia E. Seaman and Jeff Seaman.1 These grants, from government (state and federal) and private, non-profits, have been used to fund research into OER efficacy, centers for teaching and learning, new staff positions focused on increasing the use of
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OER, and websites and web services for the aggregation and dissemination of OER. And the majority of the funds have been, rightly, focused toward the creation of OER. These funds have been primarily distributed to individual faculty for the development of OER solutions for their courses. Faculty grant programs have been successful in reducing student cost, increasing student engagement and success, and in increasing the overall stock of OER. However, faculty focused on designing their course are not typically thinking about the course taken by students everywhere. The downside of increasing the stock of OER via faculty grants has been the proliferation of esoteric, non-scalable course solutions, which often have questionable descriptive metadata. When is a textbook a textbook? Who decides what a textbook is? This point brings me to hurdle number two.
The Impact of the Absence of Descriptive Metadata and Curation Standards: As a case in point, conduct a search at openstax.org, merlot. org, and https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/ for “American History Textbook” and review what is returned. With the exception of Openstax, the results will yield an array of topics, both far and wide of the curriculum covered in the typical American History course. And, as you dive deeper into the search results, you will find items indexed as “textbooks” that are not textbooks. Is it best to throw as wide a net as possible around a search term to yield as many results as possible? Place yourself in the position of a faculty member who is conducting a search with the thought of replacing her costly textbook with an OER. This professor does not have the time nor interest in accepting a grant to create an OER. She is relying on the output of the community and the prior investments of government and private institutions to increase the use of OER. To be clear, there are excellent OER American History textbooks found at all of these sites, but the process of discovery and validation (again other than at openstax.org), requires patience, diligence, review, and a likely deep read of the textbook before adoption. This level of engagement is not required of faculty searching for an American History textbook at Pearson, McGraw Hill, or Cengage. One might argue this is the cost of adopting OER, but it is friction and that defies the broader promise of open in teaching, learning, and research.
The Challenge of Adopting an OER Textbook without the Standard Package of Teaching Support Resources: Commercial textbook publishers invest significant resources and development energy into a support package for teaching and learning for all introductory textbooks. In recent years, the Edtech industry focus has been on the courseware, designed
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by leading thinkers in learning theory that is inclusive of assessment, content, and developed with learner-responsive adaptive pathways through course objectives. But this must not cloud the essential role of instructor’s manuals, textbook-aligned presentation outlines (think prebuilt PowerPoint slides), prewritten test banks that are machine gradable, and even videos that align to key learning objectives. The majority of OER textbooks do not include any of these critical support components, let alone all of the basic set of instructor manual, test item file, and PowerPoint slide presentation. Openstax has made an effort to provide the package of resources required by faculty, but then Openstax organizes and operates like its commercial competitors, making it the exception to the “In this column rule that proves my point about I will focus on the present OER landscape. Along three hurdles with ease of search and results that that I believe point to a reliable and vetted coursealigned textbook, this basic set of must be teaching resources is “table stakes” overcome if OER if we want OER adoption to scale is to become as fast and wide.
widely adopted I will conclude by offering what I believe is required to create a by faculty as context where OER could become the global the standard for course design rather university library than the insurgent, disorganized alternative. First, funding agencies community must require that investment in seeks.” OER creation is deployed to create universally useful textbooks with complete teaching and learning resource packages similar to that provided by commercial Edtech companies. Second, an organization with deep experience in indexing, metadata creation, aggregation, and curation needs to design a destination that sets the standard for all others. A faculty member on the cusp of adopting OER as a course solution should be able to go to one website, find an accurate, reliable, and curated list of textbooks, and see immediately that it is a comprehensive teaching and learning solution.
Endnotes
1. Opening the Textbook Educational Resources in U.S. Higher Education, 2017 or Digital Texts in the Time of COVID: Educational Resources in U.S. Higher Education, 2020.
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The Scholarly Publishing Scene — The 2022 PROSE Awards by Myer Kutz (President, Myer Kutz Associates, Inc.) <myerkutz@aol.com>
B
ooks have power. They can make you laugh or cry. They can make you cringe. They can horrify you. They can sell you new ideas, good or evil. They can make you change your mind about something. They can make people so crazy, even, or especially, if they haven’t read them, that they demand their removal from classrooms and library shelves. If that’s not enough, ban them outright! Burn them! No more having your cherished beliefs challenged! OK, I admit it. Some books make me very uncomfortable. Some of them are supposed to. Some of them preach to a choir different from the one I belong to, a choir that seeks to harm me and those whom I care about. Does that mean I should try to prevent other people from reading these difficult (for me) books? I have a hard time with that concept. Besides, I love reading books. I love reading lengthy book reviews. I love talking about books with a friend in his nineties who used to teach philosophy. Every January, I get to talk about books with my fellow PROSE Awards judges. The books competing for prizes are all challenging. They instruct, enlighten, and provoke. Some might make some people feel uncomfortable, and some years, those are the books that capture the judges’ imaginations. PROSE Awards (just Google for more information) deals with professional and scholarly books (as well as electronic products and journals). The program, forty-six years old, is run by the Association of American Publishers. It’s like a professional and scholarly version of, say, the National Books “The books Awards, but with arguably more competing for interesting winners. To me, at prizes are all least. And because National Book challenging. Awards winners are almost always They instruct, published by trade houses, they receive more publicity than PROSE enlighten, and Awards winners, which are published provoke. Some mainly by university presses and commercial STM houses, which might make newspapers, radio, television, and, some people feel probably, most of social media uncomfortable, and, therefore. much of the general public usually ignore, unless there’s and some a juicy scandal of some sort. years, those
are the books that capture the judges’ imaginations.”
This past Januar y, twentyfour PROSE judges reviewed and discussed a total of 560 entries, published in 2021, spread across over three dozen disciplines and formats. In deference to COVID and scheduling conflicts, discussions were conducted over Zoom and spread over more than a week. The inimitable Syreeta Swann, aided by Nadia Mathis, ran the program and set up the sessions. As they did last year, they went off perfectly.
The plan was to distribute entries and materials to judges electronically, so PDFs were to be read on screen. Now, I do read fiction and general non-fiction on my iPad’s Kindle App. But I had a hard time reviewing high-level mathematics books
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on screen. PDFs of Popular Science and Mathematics books, my other category, were easier to deal with. Because I got fewer popular books and the same small number of mathematics books as usual, I asked for print copies of everything. Probably because of COVID, warehouses weren’t operating as usual, I didn’t receive all the books I asked for (but I did receive three books, two of which were ineligible because of publication years, that I didn’t request). Once the winners in each category are selected, they’re grouped into four overarching categories. From the four ultimate winners, the best-in-show, the R.R. Hawkins Award, named for the legendary post-World-War-II head of science and technology at the New York Public Library, is chosen. I asked the judges who presided over entries that won the top four book awards and the innovative journal award to describe the winners. Let’s start with the winner of the Award for Excellence in Humanities, which the judges moved up to the top prize, the R.R. Hawkins Award. This book happened to be in the purview of PROSE Awards chief judge, Nigel Fletcher-Jones (University of Cairo Press, retired). He describes a terrific book that could make some people uncomfortable: “Every so often a PROSE Award submission comes along that shouts out to the judges, ‘this is a story that absolutely needed to be told.’ Experiments in Skin: Race and Beauty in the Shadows of Vietnam (Duke University Press) by NYU Professor Thuy Linh Nguyen Tu is one of them. The book clearly illustrates Faulkner’s famous line, ‘the past is never dead. It’s not even past.’ Experiments in Skin is a finely written amalgam of ethnography, military history, chemistry, and biomedicine that illuminates the links between the substantial modern day ‘cosmeceutical’ industry in Vietnam; the Vietnam War and its continuing toxic aftermath in the form of dioxin in the food chain; and the racist history of dermatological experimentation in both the U.S. and Vietnam that occurred around that war and continues to resonate to this day.” The winner of the Award for Excellence in Social Sciences, another book that could make some people uncomfortable, is described by Ilene Kalish (NYU Press): “Even with only 4% of the world’s population, America, with 25% of the world’s prisoners, is the world’s number one jailer. Of the roughly 2 million men and women behind bars, 40% are black and 84% are poor, so 95% of cases end in a plea deal, not because 95% of people ensnared in the criminal justice system are guilty, but because many of them lack resources or time to spend on ‘waiting for their day in court.’ And once someone agrees to a felony conviction the ‘afterlife’ of punishments goes well beyond a prison term. Rights are curtailed by the way the criminal justice system operates as a a
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‘supervised society.’ In Halfway Home: Race, Punishment, and the Afterlife of Mass Incarceration (Little Brown), Reuben Miller, himself familiar with the effects of mass incarceration as his father, brothers, and other family members have spent time in prison, brings these grim statistics to life. He describes the colossal sweep of the crisis in mass incarceration that began with the Nixon era War on Drugs and the laws enacted since then that have fed America’s addiction to punishment. Focusing on Detroit and Chicago, Miller conducted interviews with over 250 people, visited halfway houses, shadowed people on job interviews and at check-ins with their parole officers, and met with family members in prison waiting rooms. Halfway Home lyrically and hauntingly brings to life the harsh realities of prison scenes, sounds, and smells, and of gritty Midwest urban streets. The people and their devastating plights are hard to forget.” Joe Alpert, MD (professor of medicine at the University of Arizona Sarver Heart Center) describes the book that won the Award for Excellence in Biological and Life Sciences as a call to action: “The COVID-19 pandemic showed just how poorly prepared the U.S. and the world were for such an event. Sophisticated national public health systems had difficulty coping with the pandemic. Lawrence O. Gostin has spent three decades designing resilient health systems and governance focused on our interconnected world. He is a close advisor to many public health agencies in the U.S. and globally, as well as to U.S. presidents. In Global Health Security: A Blueprint for the Future (Harvard University Press), he addresses the dangers societies now face from infectious diseases and bioterrorism. Gostin examines the political, environmental, and socioeconomic factors creating and magnifying these threats. The solution for future pandemics is not just improvement in national health policy, which reacts only after a threat has become a reality at home. Gostin proposes robust international institutions, tools for effective cross-border risk communication and action, and research programs involving global public health. In the current age of global pandemics, no country can achieve public health on its own. Global health security planning is essential.”
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Steve Chapman (McGraw-Hill), describes the beautiful and instructive book that won the Award for Excellence in Physical Sciences and Mathematics: “Data models and visualizations are a way to manage complex systems in technology, education, and policymaking. Indiana University distinguished professor Katy Borner’s Atlas of Forecasts: Modeling and Mapping Desirable Futures (MIT Press) uses (very well-illustrated) visualizations to show different types of computational models and how they can be used to understand potential outcomes in complex systems. It’s a (complex) picture book for a broad audience — particularly policy-makers. While there’s nothing substantially innovative in the content, there is in the terrific physical product, which takes pains to demonstrate how powerful good data visualization can be in explaining complexity. This is an impactful issue at the moment. As an example, consider all the jousting over contesting visualizations of Covid case data. This is terrific-looking book, in a manner that well serves its key themes. Its good looks are a big plus for non-specialists (as is the $29 price tag).” Finally, Chris Reid (AAAS) describes the winner of the Journal Innovation Award: “Rapid Reviews COVID-19 (MIT Press), edited by a UC Berkeley team, won the journal innovation award because it addresses a growing challenge posed by the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. The rapidly growing number of preprints around COVID-19 vary substantially in quality. There is no peer review to triage this quality. Rapid Reviews COVID-19 adds expert reviews to these preprints, assessing whether a preprint is reliable and trustworthy, and, using a strength of evidence key, helps readers easily assess the main claims of the preprint. This is an innovative approach to a very real problem affecting the science, treatment and public policy of an issue that has dominated the last two-plus years. This journal should be commended for both its innovation and its contribution to the pursuit of accurate science.”
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Let’s Get Technical — Text and Data Mining Support at the University of Chicago Library By Jessica Harris (Electronic Resource Management Librarian, University of Chicago Library) <jah1@uchicago.edu> and Kristin E. Martin (Director of Technical Services, University of Chicago Library) <kmarti@uchicago.edu> Column Editors: Kyle Banerjee (Sr. Implementation Consultant, FOLIO Services) <kbanerjee@ebsco.com> www.ebsco.com www.folio.org and Susan J. Martin (Chair, Collection Development and Management, Associate Professor, Middle Tennessee State University) <Susan.Martin@mtsu.edu>
Abstract The University of Chicago Library has long supported research projects using non-consumptive text and data mining (TDM) methods, including acquiring datasets, licensing platforms, and directing users to APIs. As the number and breadth of research projects utilizing TDM has grown, the Library has adapted to support this growing area of research. The article will cover the evolution of the process to support TDM within the Library, including the licensing work, types of resources available, and expertise needed to have a successful TDM program.
Introduction The University of Chicago is a mid-sized doctoral university classified as Very High Research Activity. As of fall 2021, graduate students outnumber undergraduates, with FTE numbers of 10,279 and 7,618, respectively. Researchers have long had an interest in being able to explore corpora of text and data, both for exploratory purposes and for specific research questions. To help understand the types of research the Library needs to support, we’ll begin with a definition of Text and Data Mining (TDM). A good overview, including a comprehensive definition can be found at the Carnegie Mellon University Libraries website: “The extraction of natural language works (books or articles, for example) or numeric data (i.e., files or reports) and use of software that read and digest digital information to identify relationships and patterns far more quickly than a human can.”1 The use of automated tools to process large volumes of digital content can identify and select relevant information and discover patterns or connections. In general parlance, text mining extracts information from natural language (textual) sources, while data mining extracts information from structured databases of facts. TDM incorporates both types of sources. TDM is also sometimes called non-consumptive research (e.g., not a “close reading” of the content). Recent legal rulings have supported this type of computational, non-consumptive research as acceptable under U.S. Copyright law, allowing corpora of text still under copyright, such as the full set of content available within HathiTrust, to be available for text mining.2
Researchers frequently approached projects with significant technical expertise and might even develop their own technical infrastructure to host and analyze the data directly, such as the ARTFL project of French-language texts.4 Researchers approached the Library with specific desires to obtain data sets digitized by commercial vendors. The Library then negotiated special access to obtain the data sets, which were often delivered via mail on hard drives. Large scale research projects, such as the Knowledge Lab,5 focused on collecting comprehensive data sets of full text from large scholarly publishers and metadata from academic research databases. While some providers were accommodating in supplying desired datasets, as “While some the TDM market has grown, many providers were viewed it as an opportunity to monetize a new research method, accommodating and pricing could be unaffordable. in supplying Other providers had concerns about desired datasets, sharing full data, viewing it as a loss of intellectual property, or if as the TDM aggregating content from other market has rights-holders, did not have rights grown, many to be able to supply data.
viewed it as
The Situation
As the idea and use of nonan opportunity consumptive research grew, new types of users began approaching to monetize a the Library for services, including new research many graduate students and some method.” undergraduates as well. The Electronic Resources Management (ERM) Librarian would partner with a subject specialist to help identify the research question and types of resources needed, and then work with content providers to attempt to obtain the data. Content providers often lacked timely methods for supplying the data, leaving disappointed students unable to wait for months for requests to go through a licensing review. Others, more technically savvy, might attempt to script and download large quantities of articles from databases and licensed websites, violating the University’s license agreements and potentially interrupting access for the entire campus community. Clearly, things needed to change.
Initial TDM research at the University of Chicago focused on collecting data sets or compiling corpora of text. For example, the Library is a member of the Linguistic Data Consortium (LDC),3 and collects linguistic data sets, first by CD-ROM, and later through downloadable websites. Early on, vendors often restricted licensing of TDM content to specific research projects; files could not be shared with the full University community.
New mechanisms for obtaining data for TDM began to gain more traction. First, some content providers were willing to supply the full text XML and files of large, purchased archives, particularly for public domain materials, and license them for the entire university community. Other providers began offering APIs for TDM purposes on their website. This allowed researchers to extract the data they wanted and the publishers
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to protect their intellectual property. The ERM Unit worked with the Digital Library Development Center to safely host and control access to large corpora of data. What the Library still lacked was robust technical help for researchers not fluent in skills needed to perform TDM, either when trying to manage the large sets of data or using the publisher APIs. In the next section, we’ll talk about our current approach to TDM support and how we are trying to leverage three facets to provide comprehensive support: • Licensing language that supports TDM • The acquisition of data sets and other desired content • TDM technical support for researchers
The Process To help mitigate the delays that occurred when each individual TDM request required a specific license, the ERM Librarian negotiates license language that supports TDM when acquiring or renewing e-resources that can be used as blanket licensing across all requests. Many consortia have their own recommended licensing language that libraries can refer to and customize to make their own. For some examples, see the BTAA,6 CDL,7 and Liblicense8 standardized license agreements. CRL goes a step further by also creating a shared document 9 of model license terms and specifications to use specifically when licensing data resources. While some content providers still require a statement of research for individual projects, having basic TDM rights established in the general license has helped speed up the time from inquiry to data delivery. Unfortunately, some content providers continue to refuse to include TDM language, or offer exorbitantly expensive options to support TDM access, leaving some resources out of reach. Some of the commonly requested and acquired data sets at the University of Chicago include geospatial data, linguistic corpora, research citation data and historical and current newspapers. Many of the newspapers for which we receive TDM requests were purchased under a perpetual license through ProQuest. Originally, ProQuest supplied the XML files of the full newspaper content, but it proved technologically challenging to supply files of many gigabytes. Additionally, the years of coverage frequently ended in the early 1930s, so the files did not address many research needs. In 2019, we piloted and later subscribed to their new TDM platform, TDM Studio, to provide access to current news sources. TDM Studio allows an unlimited number of “workbenches,” which must be requested by filling out a short form. Each workbench contains a researcher’s project and allows them to mine most of ProQuest’s content (including newspapers, journals, theses & dissertations) using Jupyter Notebooks. Researchers must have knowledge of either Python or R to use the workbench. Since we licensed TDM Studio, 22 workbenches have been created. As the number and type of TDM content has grown, we explored several avenues to increase the visibility and
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information regarding TDM resources. To provide for an overview and discovery in a single location, we created a LibGuide, which lists our text and data mining sources by type. 10 This list includes resources for which we’ve successfully negotiated TDM rights. These terms are represented in our ERM (FOLIO) and links to content that has been intentionally purchased for TDM purposes are available in our online catalog. To provide technical support to researchers, it’s helpful to understand the processes that researchers use to text and data mine. For instance, what tools will be needed to extract, clean, and analyze the data? What skills will be required of the researcher? With vacancies in both positions that would be knowledgeable about TDM needs, we needed to expand the skill set of less experienced staff. To introduce text and data mining, several librarians enrolled in two Electronic Resources and Libraries (ER&L) 2021 TDM workshops: Fundamentals of Text Mining and Learning to Text and Data Mine with Jupyter Notebooks on Google Colab. Both workshops were excellent starting points for understanding the basics of TDM and how to get started with TDM using free, open source applications. In Spring 2021, the Library also began participating in ITHAKA’s Constellate beta program,11 which helps to empower librarians, faculty, and other instructors with the skills needed to teach text and data mining, including basics of how to program with Python. Twelve participants at the University of Chicago took the introductory course, Introduction to Text Analytics, including librarians, faculty, staff, and a PhD candidate. These training sessions have allowed us to more effectively engage with faculty and staff on their text and data mining needs and to direct them to the resources needed based on both their research topic and level of knowledge with programming languages.
Looking Forward At the beginning of 2022, working through the Big Ten Academic Alliance, the Library acquired the Web of Science (WoS) Expanded API, and the WoS & Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI) backfile XML. We are also considering a license for Cadre,12 which was developed by Indiana University to help query and analyze large datasets, such as the WoS & ESCI XML files. We anticipate these new acquisitions, along with the Scopus API, will help meet the need for more complete citation data for large-scale research projects. As our program evolves, ongoing assessment of the TDM needs of our researchers will become paramount as we decide what avenues to take to provide further content and services. We’ve recently hired a new Director of Digital Scholarship and are actively recruiting for a Scholarly Communications Librarian. Both roles will be essential in shaping the future of our TDM program. Our ERM unit will continue to push for TDM rights in our licenses and expand the discovery and access to TDM content for all University of Chicago researchers. endnotes for this column on page 60
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The Digital Toolbox — Q&A: How Consortia Are Helping Shape the Present and Future for Academic Libraries Column Editor: Steve Rosato (Director and Business Development Executive, OverDrive Professional, Cleveland, OH 44125) <srosato@overdrive.com>
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library industry veteran, Robert Karen held various leadership positions at the Westchester Academic Library Directors Organization (WALDO) consortium. He substantially grew the organization’s membership and book of business over a 20-year career. Now serving as the founder of Procurement Ventures, he had this to say about the power of consortia for academic libraries: Engage any library today and you will quickly learn they are active members in multiple consortia. Why? The answer is evident. Library consortia have the power of advocacy, proficiency and leverage. Consortia vary widely in size and membership; some are very large organizations while others are small networks of institutions that pool resources to achieve something greater than what one library could achieve alone. Regardless of size, consortia are vital to their members, their community and librarianship. Consortia bring together libraries that may not typically collaborate, enabling them to share expertise, increase their collective knowledge and advocacy power, and get more worth out of the resources they license. The new challenges facing libraries in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic are complex and varied. A significant shift in learning practices is also taking place, as students begin to expect more information at their fingertips rather than having to request it from the library. Because of this shift in expectations, libraries must adapt and evolve to remain relevant and vital parts of their institutions. Consortia will again lead libraries forward finding solutions to these new challenges. To get further insight into how consortia are helping to shape the present and future for academic librarians, we spoke with representatives from two of OverDrive Academic’s most active academic consortia systems: Diane Martin (DM), Head Librarian, Metropolitan Community College-Longview from MOBIUS (Missouri), and Liza Palmer (LP), Librarian, Brunswick Community College from the Dogwood Digital Library (North Carolina).
What is the biggest advantage of joining a consortium? DM: The ability to share resources with other libraries is a tremendous advantage. As a small library, it is a huge benefit to our patrons that we can quickly and efficiently request resources from other libraries. LP: We are a small community college library, so it feels good to have backup — whether that be financial, technological, etc. Our buying power — and our ability to offer an array of diverse, engaging materials for consumption — is so much stronger in the Dogwood Digital Library (DDL) consortium. Having access to other library staff members who are informed about trends and are also curating our collection to appeal to every user lets us achieve the ultimate goal: to have content that speaks to everyone, so no one is left out.
What benefit does being in consortia offer for eBooks and audiobooks? Against the Grain / April 2022
DM: A significant benefit is access to a shared catalog of digital audiobooks. Overnight we went from having zero online audiobooks to thousands of titles available for patrons. We already had access to eBooks through another vendor, but it was primarily an academic co l l e c t i o n . T h e co n s o r t i u m “Consortia membership in OverDrive instantly gave our community more access bring together to thousands of popular fiction and libraries that nonfiction eBooks. LP: Having easy access to audiobooks has been a great benefit. We invested a lot of funds annually in our physical audiobook collection. It was well used and hard to keep up with the demand for new titles. However, products were expensive and one scratched disc would ruin the whole set. Being able to point people to DDL for audiobooks has been wonderful; and, happily, the Libby app is very user-friendly. Having a team of people regularly developing the audiobook collection means that I don’t worry that our users are running out of content.
may not typically collaborate, enabling them to share expertise, increase their collective knowledge and advocacy power, and get more worth out of the resources they license.”
The biggest benefit, by far, is the flexibility to order new titles late into the fiscal year. For physical items, our ordering and processing of materials must be complete by March due to purchasing requirements, causing the library and our students to miss out on newer titles until the next fiscal year. OverDrive delivers real-time purchasing power, right up until the end of June, if we need it. It is incredibly rewarding to purchase something for DDL and then check back a few days later and see that there is already a wait list for it! That never gets old!
What is the greatest feature of a digital collection? DM: A great feature is how quickly the titles become available for patrons after they are purchased. Often it takes only a few hours after ordering for the digital books to be available for requests or holds. This has been especially helpful when handling patron requests or bestselling books — they can be ready to check out in just a few hours after being purchased! LP: OverDrive and DDL came to us at the exact right time — it was kismet. We had been looking for a way to provide digital recreational content to our users, particularly our very active Early College readers. And COVID, of course, made major physical purchases impractical. So, this consortium checked a lot of boxes for us — and I’m certain we couldn’t have done it on our own to the same effect. It’s easy to navigate the backend of OverDrive, from ordering to data collection, and intuitive for our users, thanks to Libby. Plus, Summon integration ensures discoverability without draining our catalogers.
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The Digital Toolbox continued from page 59 It’s also helped me to get to know other library staff within our system. Resource-sharing is more interactive now, and the OverDrive Marketplace online purchasing and admin portal helps me understand the analytics of in-demand titles. And if I see that something I was intending to purchase is in another college’s cart, I can just reach out to the staff there to coordinate. Many thanks are due to Joel Ferdon (Stanly Community College) and Alan Unsworth (Surry Community College) for having the vision and resolve to get something like this off the ground; I think it has had ripple effects beyond DDL and we’re all thinking a bit bigger now, which is great.
Does being affiliated with a consortium provide your institution with a competitive advantage in attracting students? DM: Whenever I give a library presentation or talk to students about the library resources available to them, I always mention our membership in the MOBIUS consortium, as it is a tremendous benefit to have access to their union catalog. It does provide an advantage for students when comparing different college libraries. LP: I think it does. Ask me again in five years and I might have a better sense. But in these still early days for us, there is a definite buzz. People are finding us through Libby, which is cool.
Do consortium resources give you access to more vendors and services than your school could otherwise have on its own?
LP: Without a doubt. Partnering with DDL, I feel like our library budget has expanded exponentially; we each benefit from the investment that all the library members make in this resource. And OverDrive support was an unexpected bonus. I love that I can run a diversity audit on the collection, for instance, free of charge, and get back valuable data to inform future purchases. The ease of the diversity audit process has encouraged me to conduct an in-house, grassroots audit of our physical collection. I am also loving the free, customizable promotional materials — the bookmarks giving step-by-step instructions on setting up Libby accounts have been so helpful at the desk.
Are networking and access to peer experience/expertise a value you get from your consortium participation? DM: Networking with other librarians is another benefit from a consortium membership. There is a lot of wisdom and experience in a large library consortium such as MOBIUS, and that can be a tremendous help. LP: Absolutely. I don’t really read a lot of science fiction or manga, but luckily someone else at another library does and can make key purchasing decisions to develop the collection strategically in those areas. This is just one example — in other words, I don’t have to research other genres or formats anymore before taking a chance on an item. I can simply trust in my colleagues at other member libraries to make these calls for me.
DM: We might not have been able to afford an OverDrive membership had we not joined our consortium group, nor would we have had immediate access to such a large digital library if our college was trying to join individually.
Endnotes for Let’s Get Technical column — continued from page 58 1. “Text & Data Mining: Overview,” Carnegie Mellon University Libraries, accessed January 22, 2022, https://guides.library.cmu. edu/TDM. 2. “Non-Consumptive Use Research Policy,” Hathi Trust Digital Library, accessed January 22, 2022, https://www.hathitrust.org/ htrc_ncup. 3. “Linguistic Data Consortium,” Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania, accessed January 22, 2022, https://www.ldc.upenn. edu/. 4. “The ARTFL Project,” University of Chicago Division of the Humanities, accessed January 22, 2022, https://artfl-project.uchicago. edu/. 5. “Knowledge Lab,” University of Chicago, accessed January 22, 2022, https://www.knowledgelab.org/. 6. “Consortial Licensing - The Standardized Agreement Language,” Big Ten Academic Alliance, accessed January 22, 2022, https:// btaa.org/library/consortial-licensing/standardized-agreement-language. 7. “Licensing Toolkit,” California Digital Library, accessed January 22, 2022, https://cdlib.org/services/collections/licensed/toolkit/. 8. “LIBLICENSE: Licensing Digital Content,” Center for Research Libraries, accessed January 22, 2022, http://liblicense.crl.edu/ licensing-information/model-license/. 9. “Tools and Resources for Licensing,” Center for Research Libraries, accessed January 22, 2022, https://www.crl.edu/electronicresources/tools-resources. 10. “Text and Data Mining,” University of Chicago Library, accessed January 22, 2022, https://guides.lib.uchicago.edu/textmining. 11. In January 2022, Constellate’s beta program will come to an end and ITHAKA will begin offering it to libraries with three options available: Basic (free), Pedagogy (paid), and Research (beta phase, also paid). 12. “CADRE,” Indiana University, Accessed January 22, 2022, https://cadre.iu.edu/.
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Optimizing Library Services — Embracing OER and Enhancing Digital Skills for the 21st Century: Using Applied Digital Skills as a Powerful Teaching and Learning Tool By Ms. Danielle Colbert-Lewis (Head of Research and Instructional Services, James E. Shepard Memorial Library, North Carolina Central University, USA) <dcolbert@nccu.edu> and Ms. Jamillah Scott-Branch (Assistant Director of Library Services, James E. Shepard Memorial Library, North Carolina Central University, USA) <jscottbr@nccu.edu> Column Editors: Ms. Brittany Haynes (Assistant Director of e-Collections, IGI Global) <bhaynes@igi-global.com> and Ms. Cheyenne Heckermann (Marketer, IGI Global) <checkermann@igi-global.com> Column Editors’ Note: Recognizing the continued growing interest and benefits of the Open Access movement with the current challenges libraries face, Danielle Colbert-Lewis, Head of Research and Instructional Services, and Jamillah Scott-Branch, Assistant Director of Library Services at North Carolina Central University, write about Open Educational Resources and the importance of digital skills. As an Open Educational Resource, IGI Global’s Open Access (OA) research can be fully integrated into your system from the IGI Global OA Collection. Visit www.igi-global.com/eresources/e-collections/open-access-collection/ to learn more about this collection. — CH & BH
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n the workplace, digital skills and digital literacy are in high demand. The skills in demand are “content and knowledgerelated skills with integrated digital components” (van Laar, et al. 2019 p. 93). At the university and college levels, students are expected to gain knowledge and create content. Employers want highly skilled graduates who are capable of creating knowledge, “meaning that they produce and distribute ideas and information rather than goods and services” (van Laar, et al. 2019 p. 98; Kefela, 2010). To succeed in the workplace and at school, students need to acquire digital skills and digital literacy: informational, communicational, collaborational, critical thinking, creative, and problem-solving digital skills (van Laar, et al., 2019, p. 93-94). The aforementioned skills relate to using online information and communication, digital management, online tools, and online content creation. (van Laar et al. 2019) state that “people use information communication technologies (ICTs) to access and disseminate information, and exchange experiences with experts and learning communities, and to generate and refine their ideas” (p.93). Furthermore, the UNESCO Digital Literacy Global Framework (DLGF) states a “[d]igital literacy is the ability to access, manage, understand, integrate, communicate, evaluate and create information safely and appropriately through digital technologies for employment, decent jobs, and entrepreneurship. It includes various competencies referred to as computer literacy, ICT literacy, information literacy, and media literacy” (UNESCO, 2018, p.6). The university or college library offers students, faculty, and staff (university community) access to the latest technology, including hardware, software, and databases. University librarians can also assist students with digital skills and digital literacy. One way libraries and librarians assist their communities is through Open Educational Resources. Open Educational Resources (OER) are important for libraries to add
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to their suite of resources. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) defines Open Educational Resources (OER) as “teaching, learning, and research materials in any medium — digital or otherwise — that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits no-cost access, use, adaptation and redistribution by others with no or limited restrictions” (UNESCO, 2020). OER resources are gaining more traction in libraries. Creative Commons licensing are the hallmarks of OERs that allow you to engage in the 5R’s: Reuse: “the right to make your own,” Retain: “the right to use the content in a wide range of ways,” Revise: “the right to adapt, modify or alter the content itself,” Remix: “the right to combine the original or revised content with “Low-cost or other materials to create something new,” and Redistribute: “the right to no-cost solutions share copies of the original content, are becoming your revisions, or your remixes with available and others” (Wiley, n.d).
imperative due Low-cost or no-cost solutions are to the rising cost becoming available and imperative due to the rising cost of tuition, of tuition, books, books, and supplies. The College and supplies.” Board reported in the Trends in College Pricing and Student Aid 2021 report that the estimated cost for books and supplies in students’ budget is $1,240 for four-year institutions, and for public two-year institutions, it is $1,450 (CollegeBoard, 2021, p. 11). To tackle these issues, libraries and educators present alternatives to the traditional avenues for books. These alternatives include websites with no cost (free) OER textbooks and course materials available for adoption, such as Openstax, OER Commons, Open Textbook Library, and Merlot. There are also universities and state initiatives involved in alternative textbook programs: Open Education North Carolina, UCLA’s Affordable Course Materials Initiative, NC State University Libraries Alt-Textbook Project, Affordable Learning Georgia, and others. Due to the multitude of OER resources and websites, publishers and research database vendors are engaged in “being able to find and utilize the OERs” (EBSCO, n.d.). Vendors such as EBSCOhost created a platform called EBSCO Faculty Select that enables OER resources to be more discoverable. The platform mentioned above and others like it may have costs associated with them. Also, Pearson, a company known for its educational content, assessment, teaching tools, and custom content, has a
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platform called Pearson+. Pearson+ allows users to “read, listen, create flashcards, add notes and highlights-all in one place” for a monthly fee for a low-cost way to access textbooks (Pearson, 2022). Additionally, IGI Global’s growing Open Access collection provides free resources to students and faculty alike. This can be done on IGI Global’s platform, which does not require logging in to access this free content and can be fully integrated into libraries’ discovery layer side by side with paid content. These are just a few vendors and publishers that are making eBook textbook access easier and for a low cost. A no-cost option, Applied Digital Skills allow students to engage with OERs and create new work as they learn new skills. This student-centered interaction with OERs is linked closely to open pedagogy and open educational practices. Open pedagogy “makes use of … abundant, open content (such as open educational resources, videos, podcasts), but also places an emphasis on the network and the learner’s connections within it” (Weller, 2013, 10). With its project-based learning modules, Applied Digital Skills helps students make connections as they use the tool and create projects. Open Educational Resources such as no-cost textbooks (Openstax, OER Commons) and Google for Education Applied Digital Skills can be added to the library’s multitude of resources to engage librarians in open educational practices. The Open Educational Quality Initiative (OPAL, 2011; Wiley & Hilton, 2018) defines open educational practices as “a set of activities around instructional design and implementation of events and processes intended to support learning… [including] “the creation, use, and repurposing of Open Educational Resources (OER) and their adaptation to the contextual setting. They are documented in a portable format and made openly available” (p.13). Open educational platforms such as Google for Education Applied Digital Skills allow students to gain valuable 21-century skills when they create projects, learn digital literacy skills, and share them using the Google platform (i.e., Docs, Drive, Jamboard, Slides) with their professors, peers, and beyond. Projects are based on what students learn in class or need to learn in the workforce to succeed.
Applied Digital Skills The Google for Education Applied Digital Skills platform is a cloud-based digital literacy solution that offers users a free video-based curriculum that can be used to teach and learn digital skills. The curriculum is licensed under the Creative Commons International License. Under this license, users can copy and redistribute materials in any medium or format, and they can adapt, remix, transform, and build upon available materials. The American Library Association’s Digital Literacy Task Force defines digital literacy as “the ability to use information and communication technologies to find, evaluate, create, and communicate information, requiring both cognitive and technical skills.” The Applied Digital Skills platform offers a growing collection of lessons tailored to four different audience types. Learning material can be filtered for late elementary, middle school, high school, as well as adult learners. Users can also sort lessons based on a specific digital tool, topic, or use the search box to find materials based on keyword searches. Listed in Tables 1 and 2 are a wide selection of topics and tools that can be explored. Basic implementation of Applied Digital Skills involves logging into the Google web platform with a Gmail account and selecting a target audience, digital tool, or topic of interest. There are four main ways to access this software: as a teacher, as a student, as a learner, or as a parent or guardian.
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Upon logging in, users can see their progress, and teachers and parents can create classes and track each student’s progress. However, users can also browse the curriculum without logging in by browsing the available lessons. Table 1 Applied Digital Skill Topics Areas
Table 2 Digital Tools Available on Applied Digital Skills
The Applied Digital Skills Curriculum emphasizes twentyfirst century learning through the Four Cs. According to Setiawan, et al., (2021) “the 4Cs stands for critical thinking; creativity; collaboration; and communication. Increasingly, these four skills are emerging as the competencies that differentiate students who are prepared for the more complex life and work situations of the 21st century from those who are not (Partnership for 21st Century, 2009). This digital learning and teaching tool is a project-based curriculum designed to help teachers incorporate the four Cs into their courses by providing students the opportunity to build upon their repertoire of practical digital skills knowledge. In order to give teachers, librarians, parents, etc., the ability to use lessons in the classroom or for virtual learning, this platform provides a Get Started Guide with step-by-step instructions. Additionally, there are fully developed lesson plans that teachers can modify, as well as learning objectives and learning outcomes, sample rubrics to help evaluate and assess student work, a help center that addresses frequently asked questions, and a Guardian Guide to assist parents or guardians with navigating assignments. The platform offers transcripts for every video and the option to speed up or slow down the video according to preference.
Using Applied Digital Skills at the College Level The James E. Shepard Memorial Library at North Carolina Central University has led several OER initiatives over the past few years. We are currently focusing our OER work on the campus-wide promotion of Google for Education Applied Digital Skills. Our library was the recipient of the 2020 Virtual Learning
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and Enhancement Mini-grant awarded by the American Library Association and Google. This grant provided library staff with training on using the Applied Digital Skills curriculum and funding to develop a program based on the curriculum. Our librarians centered their programing effort on integrating the Applied Digital Skills curriculum within First-Year Seminar courses. These courses are designed to assist first-year learners and transfer students with developing skills that will contribute to their academic success and personal wellbeing. The incorporation of the Applied Digital Skills curriculum further enhanced student knowledge in the area of digital literacy skills and digital skills development. Some of the lessons included career and college readiness, how to prepare for a group project, study skills, and organizational practices. Furthermore, the library created a professional development course using Applied Digital Skills as a method of virtual professional development for library staff during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. The course created focused on upskilling library staff in video conferencing using Google Meet, planning effective meetings, and connecting and collaborating from anywhere with digital tools. The self-paced professional development method was well received by library staff members, and Applied Digital Skills has been used frequently for building digital skills. Currently, our librarians are promoting Applied Digital Skills among faculty members as an alternative tool to assess student learning. Faculty members can use the Applied Digital Skills curriculum to develop students’ digital skills and enable them to create dynamic assignments, such as animated videos, websites, maps, and more. With Applied Digital Skills, students can practice life skills and gain digital skills, which are in high demand in the 21st-century workplace. In summary, open educational resources are evolving. Educators and students have access to digital materials and software to assist in the development of academic and careerready skills. Publishers and research database vendors such as IGI Global are providing ways to access the content at a low cost. The need for open education resources and digital skills development is essential for 21st-century learning and career advancement. Efforts to build digital skills are critical in the academic and workplace ecosystems. The availability of free or affordable textbooks and software supports equitable access to competitive skills.
References American Library Association. (2019, June 18). Digital literacy. Welcome to ALA’s Literacy Clearinghouse. https:// literacy.ala.org/digital-literacy/ Cornell University. (2009). What is digital literacy? Retrieved from http://digitalliteracy.cornell.edu/welcome/dpl0000.html EBSCO. (n.d.). The history and future of open educational resources in academic libraries | EBSCOpost. EBSCO Information Services, Inc. Retrieved from www.ebsco.com. https:// www.ebsco.com/blogs/ebscopost/history-and-future-openeducational-resources-academic-libraries van Laar, E., van Deursen, A. J., van Dijk, J. A., & de Haan, J. (2019). Determinants of 21st-century digital skills: A largescale survey among working professionals. Computers in Human Behavior, 100, 93-104. Google for Education’s Applied Digital Skills. (2022). Digital teaching tools. Teach & Learn Practical Digital Skills - Applied Digital Skills. https://applieddigitalskills.withgoogle.com/en/ teach
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Kefela, G. T. (2010). Knowledge-based economy and society has become a vital commodity to countries. International NGO Journal, 5(7), 160-166. Open Educational Quality Initiative. (2011). Beyond OER: Shifting the focus to open educational practices. The 2011 OPAL Report. Retrieved from http://duepublico.uni-duisburg-essen. de/servlets/DerivateServlet/Derivate-25907/OPALReport2011_ Beyond_OER.pdf Partnership for 21st Century. (2009). P21 framework definitions: Partnership for 21st Century Skills. Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED519462.pdf Setiawan, A. W., Aridarma, A., & Setiabekti, R. T. (2021, May). Comparison of Instructor and Professionals Assessment in Project-Based Learning. In 2021 IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS) (pp. 1-4). IEEE. UNESCO (2018). A global framework of reference on digital literacy skills for indicator 4.4. 2. UNESCO Institute for Statistics. UNESCO (2020). Open educational resources (OER). https:// en.unesco.org/themes/building-knowledge-societies/oer Weller, M. (2013). The battle for open - a perspective. Journal of Interactive Media in Education, 2013(3), Art. 15. doi: http:// doi.org/10.5334/2013-15 Wiley, D. (n.d.). Defining the “open” in open content and open educational resources. http://opencontent.org/definition/ Wiley, D., & Hilton III, J. L. (2018). Defining OER-enabled pedagogy. International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 19(4).
Recommended Readings Avila, Sandra,et al. “The Tele-Reference Model: Adopting Virtual Tools to Enhance Reference Services During COVID-19 and Beyond.” Technological Advancements in Library Service Innovation, edited by Manika Lamba, IGI Global, 2022, pp. 1-22. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-7998-8942-7.ch001 El Shaban, Abir and Reima Abobaker, editors. Policies, Practices, and Protocols for the Implementation of Technology Into Language Learning. IGI Global, 2022. https://doi. org/10.4018/978-1-7998-8267-1 Jain, Priti,et al., editors. Open Access Implications for Sustainable Social, Political, and Economic Development. IGI Global, 2021. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-7998-5018-2 Koutras, Nikos. Building Equitable Access to Knowledge Through Open Access Repositories. IGI Global, 2020. https:// doi.org/10.4018/978-1-7998-1131-2 Mills, Michael and Donna Wake, editors. Empowering Learners With Mobile Open-Access Learning Initiatives. IGI Global, 2017. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-5225-2122-8 Railean, Elena. Metasystems Learning Design of Open Textbooks: Emerging Research and Opportunities. IGI Global, 2019. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-5225-5305-2 Scott, Christine and Nadia Jaramillo Cherrez. “Supporting Language Learning With OERs and Open-Authoring Tools.” Policies, Practices, and Protocols for the Implementation of Technology Into Language Learning, edited by Abir El Shaban and Reima Abobaker, IGI Global, 2022, pp. 186-198. https://doi. org/10.4018/978-1-7998-8267-1.ch010 Smith, Lourdes H. and Vassiliki I. Zygouris-Coe. “Theoretical and Practical Concerns Regarding Digital Texts in Literacy Instruction.” Handbook of Research on Integrating Digital continued on page 65
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Biz of Digital — Digital Soundings: Fostering Interdisciplinary Digital Scholarship at UNCW By John Knox (Digital Projects Specialist, Randall Library, University of North Carolina Wilmington, 601 S. College Rd., Wilmington, NC 28403-5616; Phone: 910 962-3680) <knoxj@uncw.edu> and Ashley Knox (Digital Initiatives Librarian, Randall Library, University of North Carolina Wilmington, 601 S. College Rd., Wilmington, NC 28403-561; Phone: 910 962-3680) <knoxa@uncw.edu> Column Editor: Michelle Flinchbaugh (Acquisitions and Digital Scholarship Services Librarian, Albin O. Kuhn Library & Gallery, University of Maryland Baltimore County, 1000 Hilltop Circle, Baltimore, MD 21250; Phone: 410-455-6754; Fax: 410-455-1598) <flinchba@umbc.edu>
T
he University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW) is a public university with more than 18,000 enrolled students, 1,100 faculty and 1,400 staff members.1 The university has been a part of the University of North Carolina System since 1969 and was recently designated a “Doctoral Universities: High Research Activity” (or Carnegie R2) institution by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education.2
In January of 2022, university leaders officially announced that interdisciplinarity would be the focus of its Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP) for 2023-2028.3 This decision reflects a growing interest and investment in interdisciplinary research and teaching across the university in recent years. Some notable examples of this commitment include the establishment of an Interdisciplinary Studies degree program in 2018, the development of interdisciplinary academic minors in multiple colleges, and increased support from the Office of Research and Innovation for interdisciplinary research through internal funding opportunities such as the Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series (IRSS) program. 4 UNCW’s Randall Library supports interdisciplinary research and teaching in a variety of ways as well, including through its newly-formed Scholarly Research Services (SRS) team which provides the university community with access to expertise and resources in the areas of scholarly communications, research data services, digital scholarship, emerging technologies, and media production.5 The SRS team is comprised of five faculty librarians and two library staff members.6 Building on the increased interest in interdisciplinarity in the library and across the university, SRS team members Ashley Knox, Digital Initiatives Librarian, and John Knox, Digital Projects Specialist, collaborated with a team of UNCW researchers on a successful IRSS grant with the goal of growing and supporting interdisciplinary digital scholarship at UNCW. The team included PIs Kemille Moore (Art & Art History), Ashley Knox (Randall Library), Jennifer Lozano (English), and John Knox (Randall Library) and faculty partners Gene Felice (Digital Arts), Mark Lammers (Math & Statistics, Data Science), Brittany Morago (Computer Science), and Jeremy Tirrell (English). The resulting seminar series, Digital Soundings: Expanding Digital Networks and Scholarship at UNCW, was designed to foster interdisciplinary research success at UNCW by providing faculty with opportunities to participate in handson workshops, collaborative working groups, and lectures with leading practitioners in the fields of computational text analysis, data visualization, and digital mapping over the course of the 2020-2021 academic year.7 The following article describes the events and activities that comprised the seminar series along with observations on various outcomes and opportunities.
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The Digital Soundings year-long seminar series consisted of two recorded lectures, a synchronous Q&A event, and three virtual workshops, each supported by a dedicated virtual working group. The lectures and accompanying Q&A session provided the UNCW community with an opportunity to learn from and engage with a leading digital humanities practitioner and scholar whose research and teaching overlap with the three areas of practice that were the focus of the seminar series.8 The first lecture was delivered early in the fall of 2020 and helped to set the stage for the rest of the seminar series by prompting viewers to wrestle with some of the challenges inherent in building and sustaining interdisciplinary work at an institutional level, especially in relation to digital scholarship. The second lecture was delivered early in the spring semester and followed shortly thereafter by a virtual, synchronous Q&A session that was open to the entire university community. The second lecture provided viewers with an opportunity to learn more about a large-scale, collaborative digital humanities project involving an international team of collaborators.9 Providing asynchronous access to the lectures extended their reach and impact, and the synchronous Q&A session provided participants with an opportunity to engage with the speaker in a more sustained and thoughtful discussion. The intensive multi-session workshops on computational text analysis, data visualization, and digital mapping took place over the course of four consecutive weeks during the fall and spring semesters.10 Each workshop consisted of virtual, synchronous instruction sessions (1.5-2 hours per session) and independent, asynchronous exercises. The workshop cohorts were capped at twenty to ensure that all participants received individualized assistance from the workshop leaders. All three workshops reached capacity shortly after registration opened, and participation in the individual workshop sessions was collegial and collaborative. The synchronous sessions were recorded and made available to participants via a dedicated Microsoft Teams site to support independent work and to enable those who missed a session to keep pace with the group. The success of the workshop series confirmed that faculty, students, and staff are eager for opportunities to engage in interdisciplinary digital scholarship. In conjunction with the workshops and to help foster collaboration over the course of the year-long seminar series, the Digital Soundings project team also organized and facilitated three virtual working groups via the seminar series’ Microsoft Teams site. The working groups were effective channels for disseminating information to participants and for fostering collaboration between participants and the workshop leaders. Each working group included the workshop leader(s), members
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of the project team, workshop participants, and external project collaborators. Overall, the seminar series was successful at introducing new methods, tools, and concepts to faculty, students, and staff and helped to foster collaborative research across all three areas of practice. For example, the computational text analysis workshop supported separate ongoing interdisciplinary research projects conducted by Digital Soundings co-PI Jennifer Lozano and Digital Soundings faculty partner Jeremy Tirrell.11 The workshops also fostered interdisciplinary research collaborations at UNCW by bringing researchers affiliated with existing initiatives, projects, and campus-wide working groups together with Digital Soundings workshop participants. The workshops played a role in supporting innovative, collaborative teaching at UNCW as well. The Introduction to Digital Mapping workshop session on StoryMaps was especially helpful at fostering collaborative teaching efforts in multiple departments, including the departments of English, Sociology and Criminology, and Earth and Ocean Sciences.12 Following the conclusion of the seminar series in May of 2021, the PIs continue to work together to support interdisciplinary digital scholarship at UNCW by building and expanding on the collaborative partnerships that were formed over the course of the seminar series. One example of this evolving support within the library is Scholarly Research Services’ new workshop series, which includes workshops on topics, methods, and tools covered in the seminar series.13 Other examples of ongoing support for interdisciplinary digital scholarship within the library include active participation in research collaborations by members of the SRS team, the creation of a new Digital Scholarship Faculty Fellows funding program, and support for inter-institutional programming and events centered on digital scholarship projects and related initiatives.14 Going forward, the authors are excited to explore new opportunities to expand support for interdisciplinary digital scholarship at UNCW via library services and resources.
Optimizing Library Services continued from page 63 Technology With Literacy Pedagogies, edited by Pamela M. Sullivan, et al., IGI Global, 2020, pp. 72-96. https://doi. org/10.4018/978-1-7998-0246-4.ch004 Stevenson, Carolyn N., editor. Enhancing Higher Education Accessibility Through Open Education and Prior Learning. IGI Global, 2021. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-7998-7571-0 Zhou, Molly Y., editor. Open Educational Resources (OER) Pedagogy and Practices. IGI Global, 2020. https://doi. org/10.4018/978-1-7998-1200-5 Column Editors’ End Note: If you are interested in learning how you can support your faculty in OA publishing efforts and IGI Global’s Transformative Acquire & Open Initiative, visit www.igiglobal.com/e-resources/read-publish/ to learn how to collaborate on receiving OA funding through Publish & Read or Read & Publish models. For questions or assistance on fully integrating IGI Global’s Open Access Collection or other collections into your system, contact eresources@igi-global.com.
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Endnotes 1. UNCW at a Glance, https://uncw.edu/aboutuncw/facts.html. 2. Seahawk Points of Pride, https://uncw.edu/aboutuncw/ pointsofpride.html; Jenkins, V. (2018, December 20). UNCW elevated to “Doctoral Universities: High Research Activity” by Carnegie. University of North Carolina. https:// uncw.edu/news/2018/12/uncw-elevated-to-doctoraluniversities-high-research-activity-by-carnegie.html. 3. Kauzlaric, M. (2022, January 27). Cultivating the collaborative campus: The QEP for 2023-2028. University of North Carolina Wilmington. https://uncw.edu/aa/2022-qeptopic.html. 4. UNCW Office of Research and Innovation, IRSS, https:// uncw.edu/research/irss/irss_seminar_series.html. 5. Randall Library: By the Numbers, https://library.uncw.edu/ facts_planning. 6. Randall Library, Scholarly Research Services, https://library. uncw.edu/scholarly_research_services. 7. Randall Library, Digital Soundings, https://library.uncw. edu/digital_soundings. 8. Both lectures were prepared and delivered by Paul Fyfe, Dept. of English, North Carolina State University. The recorded lectures are accessible via the Digital Soundings website, https://library.uncw.edu/digital_soundings. The PIs would like to acknowledge and thank Prof. Fyfe for his contributions to the seminar series. 9. https://oceanicexchanges.org/. 10. The workshop leaders were as follows: Introduction to Computational Text Analysis, Nathan Kelber, JSTOR Labs; Introduction to Data Visualization, Fiene Leunissen, Duke University; Introduction to Digital Mapping, Jeff Essic and Walt Gurley, North Carolina State University Libraries. The PIs would like to acknowledge and thank the workshop leaders for their contributions to the seminar series. 11. Jennifer M. Lozano, “Podcasting the Global South: Radio Ambulante’s ‘Latin American Stories’ and the ReMaking of a Transnational Latin/x Cultural Sphere,” Radio Cultures of the Global South, special issue of The Global South, vol. 16, no. 1., https://www.jennifermlozano.com/ researchandpublication; Jeremy Tirrell, “Following Mechanical Turks: Articulating the Human in ‘Human Intelligence Tasks,” intermezzo, https://manifold.as.uky. edu/projects/following-mechanical-turks. 12. One example of this was Profs. Katie Peel and Jeremy Tirrell’s team-taught course, Ghost Maps: Visualizing Disease Narratives, which focused on the London cholera epidemic of 1854. As part of the course requirements, students worked together in groups to research a local public health issue and create a digital map that presented their findings. To learn more about the course and to view the student projects, visit https://library.uncw.edu/ ghost_maps. 13. SRS spring 2022 workshop schedule: https://library.uncw. edu/srs_spring_2022_workshops. 14. For information about the Digital Scholarship Faculty Fellows program, visit https://library.uncw.edu/guides/ digital_scholarship_project_consulting; On the Books: Jim Crow and Algorithms of Resistance, presentation by UNC Libraries project team co-sponsored by Randall Library and the Digital Humanities Collaborative of North Carolina, https://library.uncw.edu/news/books_jim_crow_ and_algorithms_resistance.
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ATG Interviews Michele Avissar-Whiting Editor in Chief, Research Square By Tom Gilson (Associate Editor, Against the Grain) <gilsont@cofc.edu> and Katina Strauch (Editor, Against the Grain) <kstrauch@comcast.net> ATG: Michele, you joined Research Square after finishing your postdoctoral work on cancer epigenetics at Brown University. Given your background and training, what was it that you found compelling about working for Research Square? MA-W: I joined Research Square when it was still only known as American Journal Experts, or “AJE,” which was — and still is — a company dedicated to easing barriers to publication for researchers whose mother tongue is not English. I found that mission really appealing and also liked that the company was engaged in a number of other pursuits related to scholarly publishing, such as exploring mechanisms for journal-independent peer review. As a researcher, the part of my work that I found most satisfying was connecting my findings with the rest of the literature, tying together a narrative through prose and visuals. I invested a lot of time and effort into creating effective visuals for my own publications, and so I eagerly got involved with the burgeoning Figure Formatting division soon after joining the company. Later, I would help to start up the Video Abstract service and fully entrench myself in the world of science communication, which became a great passion for me. ATG: Research Square bills itself as “a multidisciplinary preprint and author services platform.” How do your author services and tools work to complement the preprints that are submitted? Can you give us an idea what kinds of support a prospective author can expect after they submit a preprint? Are these services also available to authors who do not submit preprints? MA-W: I like to think of our platform as a new category in publishing: the intersection of manuscript preparation, preprinting, and post-publication assessment. Our most developed and most popular services on the platform are AIbased digital language assessment and automated editing tools, which are available to authors as soon as they upload their manuscript to our platform. Authors get to see their scores before and after editing and have the option of downloading the edited file. We also offer professional assessments for methodological and data reporting, where our in-house experts check applicable sections of a paper for items related to reproducibility and transparency. Authors are given detailed feedback about which items are missing, and those who successfully pass these assessments can earn badges for their preprints to publicly signify their papers’ adherence to these standards. All of this can occur before the preprint is posted. Or, if the author would rather not wait, a revision can be posted once they make the necessary changes. The hope is to empower authors to put their best foot forward while sharing research on their own terms. Right now, our services are tightly coupled with preprint posting, but this won’t always be the case. Keep
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watching us. Exciting developments are coming to our platform in 2022! ATG: In a Scholarly Kitchen article dated June 3, 2021, you championed preprinting *as part* of the journal publication process. Can you elaborate? What role does preprinting currently play? What role should it play? What do you predict for the future of preprints? MA-W: More and more, we are seeing journals and publishers not only adopt permissive policies with respect to preprints, but fully embrace them as part of the publication process. Elsevier has SSRN, Wiley has Authorea, and Springer Nature — of course — has partnered with Research Square to offer a streamlined preprint deposition service that is integrated into the submission process. Publishers are increasingly acknowledging the importance of rapid dissemination for speeding up the pace of discovery. Reputable publishing houses understand that supporting preprints does not undermine the most important functions of the journal, which are to provide validation, endorsement, and curation. In fact, decoupling dissemination from peer review means that the emphasis on “time-to-firstdecision” can be somewhat relieved, giving editors and reviewers the space to do the important work of assessing the manuscript. Having the preprint publicly available also means there are many more eyes on it, which can only stand to make an editor’s job easier. Many of the people who find the preprint organically — researchers who are intimately familiar with the topic — are the ones best positioned to critically evaluate it. These people can catch problems the reviewers or editor may easily miss and leave a comment or send an email to the author, editor, or preprint server. In short, scholarly publishing has been among the slowest industries to evolve in the digital age, and preprints are leveraging the benefits of the Internet in a way that has been long overdue. The future will see preprints go fully mainstream as both funders and major publishers lean in further. What we could see in a preprint-first world is the decommodification of the scientific article. This has the potential to change — for the better — the problematic incentive structures in academia and align them around rigor and transparency as opposed to volume or deeply skewed notions of “impact.” ATG: As you know, some people have expressed concern that preprints can be mistakenly cited as accepted research, possibly leading to misinformation and false results. Are the preprints on the Research Square platform subjected to any kind of quality control that might help diminish the possibility of this occurring? MA-W: We place a huge amount of emphasis on screening here. We have a dedicated team of screeners who follow detailed protocols to ensure that pseudoscience or potentially harmful or unethical research does not get shared on our platform. It isn’t always an easy call though. Particularly during the pandemic,
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we’ve had to weigh the importance of disseminating a certain finding against its potential to create controversy or panic. We have a process for escalation and consultation specifically to deal with submissions like these. One approach that I started to take in 2021 was to work with authors to draft Editorial Notes to accompany reasonable but potentially controversial or alarming preprints. The goal is to explain the findings in plain language and acknowledge the study’s limitations upfront. This approach seems to have worked remarkably well to deflect misinterpretation or misuse of the preprint. Through that process, I can also get reassurance for myself about an author’s motives — it speaks volumes when a researcher is happy to discuss the caveats of their findings and acknowledge the potential for controversy. That said, there certainly have been a few instances where a preprint that seemed reasonable at the point of submission was later found to be horribly flawed, or in the worst cases, fraudulent. There isn’t much that a preprint server or a journal can do to completely avoid these situations, but I like to think that having the preprints openly available allowed these problems to be discovered and addressed much faster than they would have under a traditional publishing system. We know from experience how long it can take for work to be retracted from a journal, even in the face of overwhelming evidence. In contrast, we have withdrawn preprints within days of being faced with incontrovertible evidence of issues such as data manipulation or fabrication. ATG: Given your emphasis on screening, we wonder who are the people responsible for making sure that nothing unethical or harmful gets on your platform? What are their qualifications? And who makes the final determinations as to whether a preprint gets posted or not? Can you tell us what your rejection rate is? MA-W: Our screening is completed by a small team of full-time employees who either have advanced degrees in an academic discipline or years of experience performing similar quality-control screening for journals. Screeners undergo a training regimen, follow specific protocols, and have multiple outlets to discuss and seek advisement on specific issues as they arise. In addition, we have regular meetings to ensure that our standards for screening remain calibrated and to ensure that everyone is aware of new controversies or stories that may make their way into our sphere. Our screeners may reject obviously problematic or out-of-scope submissions outright or send them for consultation with me if they are not certain of the best action. Sometimes, a request for consultation leads to further internal discussion regarding whether we should proceed with a submission. For direct submissions, our rejection rate averages 31%, most of which are scope-related rejections. For submissions coming in via a journal (and therefore after a QC process by the journal), the rate of rejection is much lower — around 4%. ATG: From your experience, are there categories of preprints that are especially susceptible to possible misinformation and false results? Does Research Square monitor those categories on its platform in any way? MA-W: It’s hard not to point to COVID-19 here, but at some point it becomes a game of probabilities. More research has been published on this virus in the span of two years than was published on all other viruses collectively in the last century. And the speed with which the papers were being generated, shared, and reviewed was unlike anything we’ve experienced before. So, naturally, these papers are more subject to mistakes and false information. Among the torrents of COVID-19
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research, I think the research around potential treatments turned out to be uniquely problematic. A big part of the problem was randomized controlled trials being published without their accompanying patient-level data, hiding egregious analytical errors and even intentional manipulations. Most journals do not require data deposition let alone conduct reviews of those data, and that would be far outside the scope of preprint screening for even the most judicious server. However, after having to withdraw a few problematic RCTs, we did start to consider data availability statements and the inclusion of data for studies asserting treatment benefits. I even added a line to our editorial policies advising that under certain circumstances, a preprint may be rejected for failing to include openly accessible data. ATG: Preprints have been in the news a great deal of late — sometimes it is positive, and other times, negative. Is there any particular factor(s) that is influencing this newfound attention? Has Research Square kept track of these various ups and downs in the news coverage? Have you detected any useful trends? MA-W: The driving factor is simply that preprint servers are increasingly becoming the first point of entry for new research, and journalists have eagerly picked them up despite the disclaimers that warn against reporting on them as established findings. It’s not reasonable to expect science writers to hold off on reporting on a preprint, particularly during a time of such great volatility as we’ve been living through these last two years. In my view, however, it can and has been done responsibly. We provided guidance for the media on our platform early on in the pandemic. What it boils down to is this: Reporters should provide a link to the source, they should clearly indicate that it is a preprint and has not yet undergone peer review, and they should always seek consultation from an unbiased subjectmatter expert to ensure that they’ve appropriately represented the topic. Honestly, I think that is a critical step for the coverage of any scientific article; journal articles are not immune to misinterpretation or misrepresentation. In fact, I think preprints have been unfairly maligned simply for being first on the scene. We can’t rerun the simulation to learn how the pandemic would have played out without this mode of rapid sharing, but my guess is that it would have been a significant net negative in terms of death and suffering. ATG: In a recent interview, you said that “we’re witnessing the very beginning of a fundamental shift in the way that research is published.” When all is said and done, where do you see this fundamental shift taking us? What will scholarly publishing look like when this shift runs its course? MA-W: To expand on some of what I said above, if support for preprints — particularly by funding organizations — expands, we are likely to see scholarly publishing transform radically. Given the level of acceptance publishers have already shown — with greater than 80% of journals accepting preprinted articles — it’s not difficult to imagine this practice becoming the norm. The idea of holding back dissemination will start to seem antiquated. eLife is probably the best exemplar of this shift among life science publishers: Last year they signaled their unequivocal support for the post-publication peer review model by requiring preprint deposition for all eLife submissions. I expect that we will see more journals move in this direction in the near term. Longer term, my hope is that this naturally leads to greater parsimony in the form of overlay journals and other models that allow assessment and endorsement (by journals, societies, and other organizations) to occur in place on preprint servers. ATG: Michele, thank you so much for making time in your schedule to talk to us. We’ve really enjoyed it.
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Unseen Labor: An ATG Interview with Ann Kardos and Gretchen Neidhardt By Ramune K. Kubilius (Galter Health Sciences Library & Learning Center, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine) <r-kubilius@northwestern.edu>
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t seems only yesterday, but it was back in 2018 that Joelen Pastva and Tony Olson contributed an article for a special health sciences issue of Against the Grain (ATG) that they entitled “Current Trends and Opportunities in Health Sciences Library Metadata.”1 Trends in use cases for metadata, not only in the health sciences, continue to expand and grow. Still, there are those for whom the term “metadata” (and about those who do that work) may continue to be surrounded by an air of mystery. Ann Kardos, the creator of the “Unseen Labor” project sought to tackle that informational challenge in a visual way. She invited metadata and cataloging colleagues to visually illustrate the story of metadata labor through stitching. Here, ATG occasional contributor, Ramune Kubilius, asked some questions in order to learn more about this interesting, multi-faceted project. Thank you to Ann Kardos and project contributor Gretchen Neidhardt for agreeing to provide a brief introduction, at the same time reminding readers that a picture is worth a thousand words, so please remember to visit the project (catalogue) site. Ann Kardos is a metadata librarian at University of Massachusetts Amherst and Gretchen Neidhardt is a metadata librarian at Northwestern University Galter Health Sciences Library & Learning Center, though at the time of stitching, she was a cataloging and metadata librarian at the Chicago History Museum. Ramune Kubilius: Describe the project a bit and how did the idea start? Ann Kardos: Unseen Labor is an international library community-organizing embroidery project that I created in
the summer of 2021. It is now an exhibit at the Science and Engineering Library at UMass, currently on display through May 2022. We also have an open access exhibition catalogue available at https://openbooks.library.umass.edu/unseen-labor-exhibit/. I’ve worked in cataloging and metadata since 2009, and though I cross-stitched as a child, I didn’t really get back into it or enjoy it until 2020, when a friend suggested I pick it up to help calm my panicking mind. After I stitched a few patterns, I realized that both metadata and stitching are built upon unseen labor. With metadata work, many people don’t realize that there are actually humans who create and maintain the library catalog. With stitching, people see the finished piece, but not all of the labor that went into making a piece of fiber art. Cross stitch and embroidery seemed like such a great medium to explore converging the ideas of metadata and unseen labor. Stitching patterns are essentially the metadata that allows someone to create a piece, and particularly with cross stitch, the resulting pixelated images made me immediately reflect upon bits and bytes of data! So I had a weird idea… I didn’t know of other metadata librarians or catalogers who were stitchers, but I wondered if I could find them through listservs or through my professional organizations. I wanted to ask my peers about the unseen labor in our work, both physical and emotional. And I wanted us to stitch our stories to create something visible and approachable to share our work with others. I created a few prompts and just started talking about the idea with some librarian friends and colleagues to see what they thought. Everyone thought it was pretty novel and interesting, so I began to think of what form this would take and how I could share whatever resulted with others. RK: What was the aim of the project? (for collaborators and potential visitors to the site?) AK: Like many people during the pandemic, I had begun to feel pretty disconnected from everyone. I was hoping first that this project would be a good way to connect with people who do the same kind of work that I do, since most of my professional development avenues had dried up. In my personal life, I’m a member of an online crafting community started by Badass Cross Stitch (https://www.badasscrossstitch.com/), and I wondered if I could create something similar for metadata librarians and catalogers. But I also hoped I would get enough people interested that I could create an exhibition of our stitching. I’m passionate about doing metadata outreach, and I wanted something to make our work approachable to librarians and others who do not work with metadata. I wanted this to be something that could serve as an educational tool for subject librarians and patrons.
Amanda Mack — Busy Bees
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At UMass, our Science and Engineering Library branch has a casual exhibit space and the librarians there were willing to work with me to see what I came up with. But the Covid pandemic also meant that I wanted to find a way to share whatever resulted virtually, in case people weren’t able to see what we did in person. Another colleague at UMass, our Open Access and Institutional Repository Librarian, Erin Jerome, suggested that I could create
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Gretchen Neidhardt: I have not personally seen the exhibit, though Ann’s pictures have looked amazing. So to that end, I think the catalog has been much more powerful to me in sharing the pieces and their stories with colleagues, friends and family. While I would love to, I doubt I’ll make it to Amherst before it closes, but I know there are plans for the exhibit to travel, so I hope to see it when it gets closer to Chicago. It has been awesome to collaborate with folks from all over, though I know we have a very significant number of contributions from the Midwest. AK: For the physical exhibit, I found that a lot of the pieces naturally tackled similar themes or feelings. I was able to create a number of groupings of pieces that went together thematically or visually. It’s great, because groupings tell fuller stories together as people stand in front of them. For the eBook exhibition catalogue, I agree with Gretchen. It has been so much more successful than I thought it would be. It has allowed me to share our experiences and stitching with an audience that would never have been able to view it otherwise. I arranged pieces in the catalogue alphabetically by name of the collaborator and included their location. This has also really shown the reach of this project, and how poignant the idea of unseen labor is to our experiences in our libraries, no matter where we live. Elliot Williams — Code an exhibition catalogue using PressBooks (http: pressbooks. com). This would create a permanent record of the pieces for the exhibition, and contributors could also add the resulting publication to their library catalogs if they wanted. RK: How were potential collaborators identified? AK: I posted my prompts and the idea for an exhibit on three metadata and cataloging listservs in the summer of 2021. I’m a member of both New England Technical Services Librarians (NETSL) and Online Audiovisual Catalogers (OLAC), so I posted to listservs for members and followers of those organizations. I also posted to a general cataloging listserv called Autocat. Collaborators self-identified — I asked people to email me if they wanted to join. Initially I had about 80 people contact me to express interest. As of today, I have submissions from about 33 library workers, representing 20 states, Newfoundland (Canada) and London (United Kingdom). There are probably another two dozen library workers who follow the project but haven’t contributed stitching. It has helped to know that we have others cheering us on!
RK: From the chapter collaborators’ standpoint, what was the motivation to participate and how much framework/ leeway was given? GN: When I saw Ann’s call go out to some of the cataloging lists, I was immediately intrigued: “I’m asking you to create a 12x12 inch cross stitch or embroidery piece that focuses on unseen labor, and how our catalogs and discovery systems don’t work well without the unseen cataloging and metadata labor that we do every day.” I’ve been cross stitching since 2019, but I’ve almost always had some kind of craft going on (beading, book-binding, knitting, sewing). I also have long been interested in this idea of craft and expression and how they relate to art and creativity, and
RK: How was the format (online book/exhibit) decided? AK: As I mentioned above, I thought this project could be used as a tool for metadata outreach. Metadata work is something that is often misunderstood. I wanted a way to make it visual and approachable, to help stimulate conversations with those who use library metadata to find what they need. I knew I wanted to have a physical exhibit so that people could really see the details of everyone’s incredible stitching. Once contributors started identifying themselves to me, I realized we were from all over the place. I wanted to make sure they could see the results of our work, even if they were far away. An exhibition catalogue made sense, because it also allowed me to include detailed descriptions of the pieces and a written overview of the project. And like I said before, the catalog also gave collaborators something meaningful to read and share with their own libraries. RK: How do the elements / formats (book vs exhibit) play out?
Against the Grain / April 2022
Lindsay Ryer — A Few Inches of Something
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I thought this project sounded like it could showcase the very craft-related meticulousness of creating and maintaining metadata in some very interesting ways. What were a pattern and thread colors if not metadata for a finished cross stitch piece? My only issue was coming up with an idea. I had a couple of thoughts, but none of them were going to translate well to a square foot of canvas. So instead, I offered to collaborate with someone else who was interested in the project but didn’t necessarily want to stitch–they could give me their ideas and I would design and stitch the pattern. I was very lucky that another metadata librarian, Tina Gross, was interested in being the other half of this design process. She had 3-4 very viable ideas. I designed patterns for all of them. She picked her favorite and suggested some edits, and then all that was left was the stitching. RK: What responses has the project received so far? What interests or intrigues those who are coming to the site? AK: The response to this project has blown me away. People love the art we have created. I have been contacted by colleagues who had never really spoken to me much before, who are thrilled to have learned something new about the metadata work I do. Visitors to the exhibit have been struck by how emotional our work could be. Mostly, people have had no idea how much time and energy goes into creating a metadata record, or how much we do that people have thought was done at the push of a button. It’s been clear that the story of automation in our library catalogs is pretty misunderstood. There is little realization that there is a human behind a lot of that automation. The educational aspect of the exhibit and the catalog has gone far beyond my expectations! I’m thrilled to have created so much interest and engagement in library metadata work. GN: I’ve heard such positive feedback so far, and folks seem to really like the pieces that poke a little fun at the frustrations of unseen labor. It’s also been a surprising educational tool. I don’t have any librarians in my family and I sometimes struggle to explain to them what it is exactly that I do all day, and showing them this project has really helped contextualize that. RK: If you had one thing you wanted to convey to people about this project and/or about metadata, what would it be? GN: I think the one thing I would like to convey is that this is work, and there’s a deep need for human interaction and intervention in creating metadata. The better work we do, the more seamless and effortless it appears on the user side, which unfortunately erases our labor. Projects like this help publicize and celebrate the skills and effort that it takes to make resources discoverable. RK: Where does the project go from here? AK: I wasn’t expecting it, but I have had several people contact me and ask if the exhibit will travel! I’m working with a few collaborators now to see if we can send the exhibit to
70 Against the Grain / April 2022
Gretchen Neidhardt & Tina Gross — This is the Library Now their institutions. There are a lot of details to figure out at the moment, but please stay tuned! You might be able to see it at a location nearer to you in the future! At UMass, I’m using the exhibit to create some additional avenues for metadata outreach. I’ll be teaching a “learn to stitch” workshop in the UMass Science and Engineering Library in March 2022. The workshop aims to use stitching as a way to engage with science topics one might not be familiar with. I’ll be sharing resources on using art to assist with scientific literacy, while I teach attendees to stitch science-related patterns, such as insects, viruses, and botanical patterns. I’ve also used the exhibit to create some additional educational and outreach resources for the UMass metadata unit. I created an “Intro to Metadata” LibGuide (https://guides.library.umass.edu) for patrons and subject librarians with the hope that this will help them better understand the services we provide. If this all helps patrons and other librarians engage with our work in a positive way, then I’ll feel like we’ve all accomplished so much.
Endnotes 1. Pastva, Joelen and Olson, Tony (2018) “Current Trends and Opportunities in Health Sciences Library Metadata,” Against the Grain: Vol. 30: Iss. 4, Article 50. DOI: https:// doi.org/10.7771/2380-176X.8279
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ATG PROFILES ENCOURAGED Allen Jones
Michele Avissar-Whiting
Director, Digital Library & Technical Services The New School 66 West 12th Street, Room 409 New York, NY 10011 Phone: (212) 229-5309 <allen.jones@newschool.edu> https://library.newschool.edu
Editor in Chief Research Square 601 West Main Street, Suite 102 Durham, NC 27701 <eic@researchsquare.com> www.researchsquare.com
Born and lived: Cleveland, OH, Pittburgh PA, and Brooklyn, NY.
Professional career and activities: Current Chair, Ex Libris Users of North America, Co-Convener, Subject Matter Experts for ReShare.
Born and lived: Born in Be’er Sheva, Israel; grew up in Rhode Island. In my spare time: Play guitar and bake macarons.
Favorite books: Nonfiction about biology, sociology, and philosophy and sci-fi — especially dystopian themes! My favorite recent read is Machines Like Me (Ian McEwan).
Family: Daughter.
Philosophy: “The only wisdom we can hope to acquire is the wisdom of humility.” — TS Eliot
Philosophy: Christian Existentialist.
How/where do I see the industry in five years: Like every other industry, I expect that ours will be in a state of transformation in five years, specifically being augmented by AI and blockchain technologies. AI will help offset the time spent on less cerebral functions in the screening and vetting of research: conducting first pass assessments of clarity and completeness, matching reviewers to content, and detecting potential fraud — all with great speed and specificity. Blockchain has the potential to solve a lot of problems in scholarly publishing: from establishing provenance (especially important in the age of preprints) to, improving transparency in peer review, linking individuals unambiguously to their activities (grants, publications, etc), optimizing and securing data storage, and creating new incentive structures through tokens.
Favorite books: The Man in the High Castle. Most memorable career achievement: (Before now?) Working on the new AngularJS based Primo User Interface Working Group, working on the ISO18626 Working Group for Interlibrary lending information standards. Goal I hope to achieve five years from now: Controlled Digital Lending. How/where do I see the industry in five years: I see the industry moving towards collective action for metadata functions such as authority work and cataloging. Hopefully, the war about open data vs. open source software will resolve itself into a middleground where we speak about terms of use. I also see the sharing of licensed material being a more widely accepted practice.
COMPANY PROFILES ENCOURAGED
Products page: https://pressbooks.com/our-products/
History and brief description of your company/ publishing program: Pressbooks was founded in 2011 by Hugh McGuire. The core open-source product, Pressbooks Authoring & Editing Platform, was designed to support self-publishing by making it easy for individuals to create books in multiple formats. In the mid2010s, Pressbooks became a popular software for the publishing of open textbooks. Since then, Pressbooks has advocated for the creation, adaptation, and sharing of open educational resources, working closely with librarians and instructional designers to iterate on the core product to respond to the various needs of teaching faculty. Today Pressbooks offers three main products: Pressbooks Directory, a referatory of over 3000 free and public books created by Pressbooks users; Pressbooks Authoring & Editing Platform, a tool for the creation of open books; and Pressbooks Results for LMS, a secure method of connecting Pressbooks books to a learning management systems via LTI 1.3.
Number of employees: 16
Is there anything else that you think would be of interest to our readers? Pressbooks has a sister company, Rebus Foundation. We share a founder, Hugh McGuire, but are not affiliated.
Book Oven Inc. (Pressbooks) 5333 Casgrain Avenue, Suite 202 Montreal, Quebec H2T 1X3 https://pressbooks.com Officers: Chief Executive Officer, Hugh McGuire; Chief Operating Officer, Başak Büyükçelen.
Association memberships, etc.: EDUCAUSE Key products and services:
Pressbooks Directory Pressbooks Authoring & Editing Platform Pressbooks Results for LMS Core markets/clientele: Libraries and Centers for Teaching and Learning at Higher Education Institutions, primarily located in North America.
Against the Grain / April 2022
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Fulcrum
Research Square Company
Michigan Publishing 839 Greene Street Ann Arbor, MI, USA Phone: (734) 936 0452 https://www.fulcrum.org
601 W Main Street #102 Durham, NC 27701 Phone: (919) 704-4253 www.company.researchsquare.com
Affiliated products: ACLS Humanities Ebook Collection, University of Michigan Press Ebook Collection, BAR Digital Collection. Key People: Jeremy Morse, Platform Manager; Melissa Baker-Young, Project Manager; Jon McGlone, Digital Product Design Engineer; Jason Colman, Head of Publishing Services; Tim Belch, Web Developer; Conor O’Malley, Application Programmer; Seth Johnson, Applications Programmer. Key products and services: Infrastructure and services for mission-driven publishers. Core markets/clientele: Small- and mid-sized academic book publishers. History and brief description of your company/ publishing program: Fulcrum is an open-source publishing platform developed and maintained by the University of Michigan Library. It delivers over 10,000 eBooks from more than 125 publishers to over 700 libraries around the world. It exists to support new forms of interactive scholarly works by scholars in the humanities, especially those who still believe in the monograph as core to their research and teaching. Is there anything else that you think would be of interest to our readers? While the libraries that established and support Lever Press (https://www.leverpress.org/) have been key advisors on the development of Fulcrum, the connection between a lever and the fulcrum on which it pivots is entirely coincidental.
8888 University Drive Burnaby, BC V5A 1S6, Canada Phone: (778) 782-3111 https://pkp.sfu.ca/ Officers: John Willinsky, Founding Director Association memberships, etc.: ORCiD, Crossref, OASPA, etc.
Key products and services: Open Journal Systems, Open Monograph Press, Open Preprint Systems. Libraries,
Number of employees: 35
societies,
publishers,
History and brief description of your company/ publishing program: The Public Knowledge Project was founded in 1998 at the University of British Columbia and has been operating as a research and development unit within Simon Fraser University Libraries since 2005. PKP develops and supports open source software systems that manage the complete scholarly publishing workflow, from submission through peer-review and on to publication and indexing; it conducts scholarly communication research on questions of open access and open science. PKP’s software systems and associated services are used by groups of scholars, research libraries, scholarly societies, university presses, and publishers, working in multiple languages around the globe, while its research appears in leading journals and with key university presses.
72 Against the Grain / April 2022
Officers: Rachel Burley, President; Shashi Mudunuri, Founder and CEO. Association memberships, etc.: Society for Scholarly Publishing (SSP). Key products and services: English Language Editing Digital (AI-based) Editing Translation Services Reporting Standards Badges Grant Services Journal Selection/Recommendation Services Formatting Services Figure Preparation Services Research Promotion Services Core markets/clientele: Researchers Academic and Research Institutions Scholarly Publishers Number of employees: 300+
History and brief description of your company/ publishing program: About Research Square Company
Public Knowledge Project
Core markets/clientele: independent scholar-editors.
Affiliated companies: Research Square, AJE (American Journal Experts), Springer Nature.
Research Square Company, a five-time INC 5000 award winner, exists to make research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. Through our industry leading preprint platform, Research Square, research promotion tools, and AJE’s comprehensive suite of manuscript preparation services, we are proud to have supported over 2.5 million authors in 192 countries since our founding in 2004. Across all sides of our business, our team of former researchers and publishing industry professionals truly understand the importance of sharing research results with the world. By helping researchers communicate their work more effectively, we accelerate the pace of global discovery and advancement. About Research Square and AJE Research Square and AJE, both divisions of Research Square Company, exist to make research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. Through a comprehensive suite of manuscript preparation services, our industry-leading preprint platform, and research promotion tools, we are proud to have supported over 2.5 million authors in 192 countries since our founding in 2004.
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Check It Out!
CHARLESTON BRIEFINGS The Charleston Briefings are a series of short books (12,000 to 20,000 words) on the topic of innovation in the world of libraries and scholarly communication. Stay up to date!
charleston-hub.com/media/briefings/
“Faced with so many changes to their roles and responsibilities, librarians concerned with scholarly communications issues are desperately in need of concise and practical professional development resources. The Charleston Briefings are perfectly adapted to meet our needs and fill a gap in a market dominated by expensive edited volumes and densely written, narrowlyfocused journal articles.” -Charles Watkinson Associate University Librarian, University of Michigan Library
Back Talk continued from page 74 on the future of open science in Greece by Natalia Manola (research center “Athena”), recognizing that broad support for the common project has so far run aground on changes in Greek governments — and the changes that will certainly happen again with regularity. And of course every open access conversation — on diamond open access by Pierre Mounier (OPERAS), on Subscribe to Open (S2O) projects by Anne Ruimy (EDP Sciences), in Ros Pyne’s (Bloomsbury) exploration of OA books in the humanities and social sciences, and of course in Widmark’s and Torny’s discussions of the “transformative agreement” — focused on business models. Pyne was insightful for acknowledging models that had seemed promising (e.g., the old freemium model pioneered by the US National Academy of Sciences Press, where free digital copies were made available side by side with print books for sale — a model that faded when the user preference shifted dramatically to the digital) and Ruimy astutely prudent in observing that S2O efforts to date have been remarkably successful against the risk of losing subscribers and gaining free riders — but acknowledging that we just have enough history to know how that can go in the future. She explained the choice of S2O for her firm’s journals because they needed to respect mathematicians who hate APCs and astronomers who regularly practice green OA and would think it silly to pay again for OA through APCs. The phrase “business model” is shorthand for a limited and inevitably ineffective (in itself) intervention in a larger social ecosystem, which requires economic intervention to motivate and manage cooperation and collaboration. A good business model may be necessary but is rarely sufficient to effect change.
Against the Grain / April 2022
It is a hopeful description, a hypothesis about the future — not a magic pill. One of the most provocative presentations was Toby Green’s (Coherent Digital) review of the flood of gray literature that carries the business of our world, an entirely new ecosystem in the wild. We all looked at the postings of Kamil Guleev — the astute reporter and analyst of Russia in Ukraine, whose work is all and only and entirely on Twitter. It reaches its audience now — but tomorrow? Once upon a time, speaking to and for the community of scholars formed around libraries was both necessary and almost sufficient. In a world plagued by the lies called fake news, reaching a broader audience immediately seems critical. Toby and his colleagues are explorers in the ecosystem of current information, explorations that may give rise to a sustainable business model. But understanding the ecosystem and what influences it is the first order of business. I close with optimism. The drive for OA is not 10 or 15 or 20 years old, but nearly 30. For grizzled veterans, the progress made today in opening science and scholarship is astonishing. Good business models, good technology, and even — dare I say it — smart and brave politicians can all be powerful instruments in advancing this cause, but we need to keep the focus on the overall ecosystem and not over-focus on specific interventions, specific exertions of effort. These are large, heavy systems that take time to move, take time to change. Streetcars aren’t renowned for their speed, but they can be a very good way to get where you’re going.
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Back Talk — A Streetcar in Athens Column Editor: Jim O’Donnell (University Librarian, Arizona State University) <jod@asu.edu>
F
iesole, the hilltop town overlooking Florence, first claimed the stage of world history when the Roman populist Catiline made it his headquarters. For the library world, the town is famous rather as the home of Casalini Libri, the entrepreneurial bookselling enterprise founded after World War II by the memorable Mario Casalini (d. 1998) and now led with great energy by his children, Barbara and Michele. Among their many accomplishments is the hosting for more than twenty years now of the annual Fiesole Retreats, organized in partnership with the Charleston Company and bringing together thought leaders and rising stars in the world of libraries and publishers to monitor the present and anticipate the future of our collections. The retreats return to Fiesole itself regularly, but they also explore other venues of hosting on the principle that the conversations can be enriched by choosing different countries and cities to host and nurture ideas. Thus, there was nothing truly remarkable when the 2020 retreat was scheduled to be hosted by the new National Library of Greece in its stunning facility in the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center, a few yards from the Aegean coast in the traditional port of the city of Athens, whose historic core lies a handful of kilometers inland. NLG Director Filippos Tsimpoglou managed the move four years ago from a stately facility in central Athens to the new location, and has led a radical rethinking of what a national Library can and should be. Reality intervened. COVID cancelled the 2020 retreat and, as plans kept adjusting, cancelled several rescheduling opportunities in 2021. But the first week of April 2022 finally saw familiar and new faces gathering at the Niarchos Center, joined by a large group of Greek librarians, for three days of remarkable conversation. Director Tsimpoglou set the keynote, in a wide-ranging and inspirational talk he made vivid by imagining a “Streetcar Named the Future” — the vehicle of innovation. When a general strike took down Athenian public transit on the day of his talk, we could joke about this streetcar being the only one running in Athens. In response to his vision, Martina Bagnoli (Chair, Supervisory Board of Europeana) spoke of a vision the retreatants shared of an “open, knowledgeable, and creative society,” a vision all the more necessary in time of burgeoning war, lingering
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COVID, and the struggle of everyone from journalists to librarians to find ways to counteract the fake news plagues of our time. When I review my notes from the presentations and discussions, I find always various things I learned and did not expect. Who knew, for example, that open educational resources (OERs) have not only the power to provide better and more affordable learning materials to traditional students, but also reach as large an audience of what we would traditionally call the middle-aged. We were jolted awake by Nikolas Sarris, a conservator at NLG showing us the power of linked data to make conserving print collections a genuinely collaborative and more effective enterprise than only the traditional handicraft approach of local facilities. Maria Georgopolou (Gennadius Library at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens) gave a riveting tour of the records of the origins of modern tourism — invented in Athens — when in the 17th to 19th centuries, travelers from the wealthy worlds of western Europe found they could travel to impoverished Ottoman Greece — a place well known to them from their classical educations, well stocked with astonishing monuments, and just in a traveler’s reach. The most dramatic and timely presentation came from Quinn Dombrowsky (Stanford University), one of the leads of the international SUCHO (Saving Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Online) project — a project that didn’t exist six weeks before we met, but was galvanized into action by the outbreak of the Russian assault on Ukraine. An international team of dedicated supporters is working around the clock to archive Ukrainian cultural heritage from the web, to avert literal destruction and to make Ukrainian culture better known and accessible worldwide. The interplay between material and digital archive in Museum of the Lay of Igor’s Campaign, a real museum in Novgorod-Siversky in northeastern Ukraine — very much in harm’s way — and a digital representation of the same museum on the web. Now at least the latter is safe. Dombrowsky spoke movingly of SUCHO’s mission of “digital repatriation”: bringing Ukrainian heritage back to Ukraine and out to the wider world at the same time. There were also themes and learnings that ran deeper still and brought about fascinating dialogue. The tone was set in presentations by Wilhelm Widmark (Stockholm University Library) and Didier Torny (CNRS in Marseilles). In different ways they reviewed the state of “transformative agreements” between libraries and publishers and found (Torny) a welter of imperfect information obstructing our understanding and (Widmark) a path to real transformation that is opening up much more slowly than innovators wish. In my own closing remarks, I outlined an essential implicit theme. Presentation after presentation, on a wide variety of issues, had returned again and again to the theme of finding a business model for innovation. The National Library of Greece struggles to find one that will sustain its eBook reading room, intended to make eBook reading easier, freer, and more commonly practiced in a country with a relatively small publishing industry. But the conversations on OERs also reverted to business model questions, as did a refreshingly frank and fascinating presentation continued on page 73
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One Ivy's "essential homework for getting the most out of COP26" ...but 11 out of 12 reports are published as grey literature
It's striking, isn't it? Ahead of COP26, many leading research institutions—like IEA, Chatham House, Yale, and others—published essential reports on their websites as grey literature.
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And they're not alone. Every year, policy organizations around the world post tens of thousands of reports, working papers, briefs, and datasets—a vital and growing body of knowledge dispersed across the internet.
Through Policy Commons, grey literature from trusted organizations can now take its rightful place in the scholarly record.
Grey literature is excluded from the scholarly record. It's hard to find, difficult to cite, and at risk of disappearing when links break.
Request a demo: information@coherentdigital.net Source: https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2021/10/12-timely-reports-as-start-of-cop26-nears/ Against the Grain / April 2022 <https://www.charleston-hub.com/media/atg/>
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