c/o Katina Strauch Post Office Box 799 Sullivan’s Island, SC 29482
ALA Annual issue
TM
volume 32, number 3
ISSN: 1043-2094
June 2020
“Linking Publishers, Vendors and Librarians”
Brave New World — Access and Authority in 2020 by Lettie Y. Conrad (Publishing & Product Consultant, Information Science PhD Candidate, Queensland University of Technology) <lettieconrad@gmail.com>
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ow more than ever, the scholarly communications industry is struggling to ensure scholars and learners have state-of-the-art digital access to the world’s research and instructional resources off campus. Just as the library community was taking steps toward modernizing access controls, with initiatives like SeamlessAccess 1 and GetFTR, 2 social distancing interventions during the coronavirus pandemic put a spotlight on the limitations of IP-based authentication, virtual private networks, and other legacy systems. Before COVID-19 was a household name, our traditional modes of institutional controls on access to scholarly resources were undeniably disrupted — by funding agen-
cies and other open-access advocates, various points of “content leakage,”3 not to mention illegal efforts on the part of wily activists who want to liberate information from social constructions, such as copyright law. This issue is dedicated to establishing a collaborative understanding of where we go from here, in the brave new world of access and authority in 2020. Marshall Breeding offers his expert perspective on today’s challenges with digital authority controls, including shifting to distributed workfrom-home library operations all while scaling networks for high-volume remote access. Members of the Scholarly Networks Security Initiative discuss cyber challenges and methods for subverting efforts such as Sci-Hub — just
If Rumors Were Horses
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his month, Charleston County Public Library (CCPL) is honoring the lives of those lost at the Mother Emanuel AME Church five years ago by promoting acts of kindness around the county and releasing a special tribute documentary about Cynthia. The Library is asking the public to perform acts of kindness and post a photo or video of the act to social media using #ThisIsForCynthia. Cynthia Graham Hurd was one of the nine people killed in the shooting at Mother Emanuel AME Church and she was a beloved long-time librarian with CCPL. The Cynthia Graham Hurd/St. Andrews Library is named after her. “We do not want anyone to forget what happened to Cynthia or the eight others killed in the church five years ago,” said CCPL Executive Director Angela Craig. “Every year since the tragedy, we have Pictured are two of Katina’s grand- worked to honor her legacy through book drives children, George (lt) and Porter (rt) for her family’s foundation, special programs, Jacks — young and already reading! continued on page 6
one of the various pathways and pitfalls discussed by Scott Ahlberg of Reprints Desk, who explains how flexibility in serving diverse user needs is the key to success. Building on this theme, the folks at Third Iron outline ten principles that ensure simple, user-friendly library access, where Kendall Bartsch and John Sequin have seen first-hand how content delivered to meet user expectations “will be happily used.” Abigail Wickes echoes this sentiment by explaining that library “access is people,” which was her motto when Duke University librarians were scrambling to support students, faculty, continued on page 8
What To Look For In This Issue: Problems with Searching Amazon....36 Eight Lessons Learned From Eight Years of Open Access...................... 61 Librarians as Interdisciplinary Digital Research Project Partners................ 65 Academic Library Response to COVID-19....................................... 67 Interviews
Barbara Casalini............................ 40 John T. Nardini, PhD..................... 42 Steven J. Bell – Part 2.................... 45 Alex Lazinica.................................. 72 Profiles Encouraged
People, Library and Company Profiles............................................ 81 Plus more............................See inside
1043-2094(202006)32:3;1-0
