c/o Katina Strauch Post Office Box 799 Sullivan’s Island, SC 29482
VOLUME 33, NUMBER 1
FEBRUARY 2021 TM
“Linking Publishers, Vendors and Librarians”
ISSN: 1043-2094
Building the Data Epoch By Jeff Lang (Assistant Director, Platform Development at ACS Publications) <J_Lang@acs.org>
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his issue explores primary research data through projects and initiatives that aim to make data more plentiful and more useful. Most of us are awash in data about our physical & virtual activities, our health, our homes, etc., but actionable data can be hard to find. The same is true of researchers, like the ocean castaway surrounded by water but with nothing to drink. The reports in this issue describe efforts to help authors publish the data that will nourish tomorrow’s researchers. They paint a picture of research output that is less “book report” and more “diorama,” in which researchers are invited to touch, play and learn-by-doing in ways that far surpass the crude visuals of charts and graphs. None of these authors have kind
words about Supporting Information, as it exists today. So, they are building the Data Epoch; an era where authors can easily make their data available for reuse. In most of my discussions with research data enthusiasts, we inevitably reach the topic of carrots vs. sticks. Which one will encourage authors to publish their data or to make it more useful? Should funders, editors or any other esteemed group require authors to share ever more data through their publications? However, more isn’t always better. To receive grant funding today is to contend with data availability statements and deposition requirements. Big files are starting to fill repositories, but aren’t serving the greater purpose they were intended for. Instead, they’re glo-
If Rumors Were Horses
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reetings everyone! A new year has begun and all seems hopeful and optimistic! The Charleston Hub team has made many changes to welcome the new year!
So, What’s New, you might ask. Well first of all, the Charleston Conference and Against the Grain websites have been merged into the Charleston Hub. If you haven’t seen it, please visit us at www.charleston-hub.com/. We will continue publishing Against the Grain online and in print. The print ATG will be reduced to 64 pages and we’ll be experimenting with what should be included. Please let us know if you want to nominate some-
thing for print. All issues of ATG will be online and delivered electronically but the 64-page print issues will be embargoed on Charleston Hub for 6 months to non-subscribers. We know that most of you prefer online so this is an experiment, and we will see how it turns out! Thanks for your perseverance and patience with us. You will be receiving an email from Caroline Goldsmith explaining the subscriber and delivery options which are now available. A caveat: Katina Strauch is responsible for complaints so do let her know if you have some! <kstrauch@comcast.net> continued on page 6
rified backup systems. One could argue this is better than nothing because Science does need a backup system and authors are encouraged to think about the importance of their data. But the current publishing infrastructure does not allow for truly useful data. Even the data enthusiasts have to work hard to make their data useful upon publication. Much like a traditional product adoption curve (Wikipedia, n.d.), the enthusiasts are the innovators who continued on page 9
What To Look For In This Issue: Reader’s Roundup..................... 17 Legally Speaking........................ 28 The 2021 PROSE Awards........... 32 The Digital Toolbox................... 45 TOC for ATG Online Articles..... 46
Interviews Bob Hanson............................... 10 Meg White................................. 51 Tony O’Rourke........................... 53
Profiles Encouraged People, Library and Company Profiles...................................... 59 Plus more...................... See inside
1043-2094(202102)33:1;1-A
Get up to speed quickly on emerging topics The ACS In Focus e-books help readers of all levels accelerate their fundamental understanding of new topics and core techniques from across the sciences. In an instructional setting, these works bridge the gap between textbooks and literature. For the seasoned scientist, they satisfy the hunger for continuous growth in knowledge and capability.
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Against The Grain – ISSUE HIGHLIGHTS Against the Grain (ISSN: 1043-2094) (USPS: 012-618), Copyright 2020 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. Call (843-509-2848) to subscribe. Periodicals postage is paid at Charleston, SC. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Against the Grain, LLC, PO Box 799, Sullivan’s Island, SC 29482.
Editor:
Katina Strauch (Retired, College of Charleston)
Associate Editors:
Cris Ferguson (Murray State) Tom Gilson (Retired, College of Charleston) Matthew Ismail (Central Michigan University)
Research Editors:
ISSUES, NEWS, & GOINGS ON Rumors.............................................................................................................. 1 From Your Editor............................................................................................... 6 Letters to the Editor.......................................................................................... 6 Advertising Deadlines....................................................................................... 6 Table of Contents for Against the Grain Online Articles..................................46
FEATURES Building the Data Epoch................................................................................... 1
Judy Luther (Informed Strategies)
FAIRSpec, Finding Aids for Primary Research Data.........................................10
Assistants to the Editor:
The Curation Process Adds Value to Primary Research Data and is Key to its Usability...........................................................................................................13
International Editor:
Integrating and Publishing Research Data: Two Experiments with Authorea....15
Ileana Jacks Toni Nix (Just Right Group, LLC)
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 (Western Kentucky University) 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.
Back Talk — The Pandemic..............................................................................62
REVIEWS Reader’s Roundup: Monographic Musings & Reference Reviews....................17 Epistemology — The Scientific Humanism of Fred Dylla [Book Review]..........24 Booklover — Randomly Greedy........................................................................27
LEGAL ISSUES Legally Speaking — The Covid-19 Stimulus Bill and Copyright.......................28 Questions and Answers — Copyright Column..................................................30
PUBLISHING Bet You Missed It.............................................................................................. 8 The Scholarly Publishing Scene — The 2021 PROSE Awards............................32 Don’s Conference Notes...................................................................................34 And They Were There — Reports of Meetings..................................................36
TECHNOLOGY AND STANDARDS Library Analytics: Shaping the Future — Library Web Analytics: Data That Can Empower and Endanger Our Users............................................................38 Let’s Get Technical — A Case (Western Reserve University) Study of COVID-19 e-Resource Usage and Free Access..................................................40
BOOKSELLING AND VENDING
Production & Ad Sales:
Optimizing Library Services — The Complexity, Benefits, and Obstacles of Open Access (OA): How Librarians Are Becoming Leaders of the OA Movement.......42
Advertising information:
The Digital Toolbox: Case Studies, Best Practices and Data for the Academic Librarian — How Consumer Behavior is Driving Change During the Pandemic...................................................................................................45
Publisher:
Biz of Digital — Metadata Remediation of Legacy Digital Collections: Efficient Large-Scale Metadata Clean-Up with a Sleek Workflow and a Handy Tool.......47
Toni Nix, Just Right Group, LLC., P.O. Box 412, Cottageville, SC 29435, phone: 843-835-8604 fax: 843-835-5892 <justwrite@lowcountry.com> 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>
Against the Grain is indexed in Library Literature, LISA, Ingenta, and The Informed Librarian. 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 ©2021 by Katina Strauch
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v.33 #1 February 2021 © Katina Strauch
Against the Grain / February 2021
ATG INTERVIEWS & PROFILES Meg White – Director of Vendor Partnerships, Charleston Hub and Senior Consultant, Delta Think........................................................................51 The Innovator’s Saga — An Interview with Tony O’Rourke .............................53 Profiles Encouraged.........................................................................................59
ATG SPECIAL REPORTS On Bookstores, Libraries & Archives in the Digital Age...................................57
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From Your (transitioning) Editor:
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obody said it was going to be easy but we at the Charleston Hub think we have been doing an okay job considering! Thanks are due to Leah, Caroline, Tom, Matthew, Lars, Toni and Sharna. Moving from print to virtual provides many challenges to personnel not to mention the budget! We are also now in EBSCO Discovery Service and available by your institution’s IP addresses. This — the first issue of Against the Grain in the new format — is guest edited by Jeffrey Lang of the American Chemical Society and is about building data to make it more useful. The idea is that the data epoch will make it possible for authors to make their data available for reuse. The papers in this issue discuss FAIRSpec and spectroscopic data, the curation process for primary research data, and two experiments about integrating and publishing research data. We have deliberately limited the number of feature articles and appreciate
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 Charleston Hub staff: Thank you all for your hard work on the new Against the Grain, the Charleston Hub, and the transition to IP addresses. Whew! It has taken a lot of work from a true Team: Leah Hinds, Caroline Goldsmith, Joshua Dickard, John Lavender, Toni Nix, Tom Gilson, Sharna Williams, Matt Branton, Kent Anderson, and many others! Thank you all! Sincerely, Katina Strauch, Yr.Ed. Note to Our Loyal Subscribers: You can now Subscribe to Against the Grain on the Charleston Hub, visit https://www.charleston-hub.com/membership-account/ membership-levels/ to subscribe or renew your subscription today!
AGAINST THE GRAIN ADVERTISING DEADLINES VOLUME 33 — 2021-2022
Issue Ad Reservation Camera-Ready February 2021 01/05/21 01/19/21 April 2021 02/18/21 03/11/21 June 2021 04/01/21 04/22/21 September 2021 06/10/21 07/08/21 November 2021 08/12/21 09/02/21 Dec. 2021-Jan. 2022 11/04/21 11/22/21
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT Toni Nix <justwrite@lowcountry.com> Phone: 843-835-8604 • Fax: 843-835-5892 6
Against the Grain / February 2021
your feedback please. This issue also includes interviews with Meg White and Tony O’Rourke, bet you missed it, book reviews, legal questions and answers, the scholarly publishing scene, conference notes, reports from the 2020 Charleston Conference and preconferences, library analytics, let’s get technical, and optimizing library services. We have also included case studies, metadata remediation, and looking at bookstores, libraries and archives in the digital age. There are profiles of Matteo Cavalleri, Christopher Eaker, Jeff Lang, Babak Mostaghaci, Alberto Pepe, and Meg White. Company profiles are of ACS Publications and Atypon. Last but not least we have back talk about the good, the bad, and the unknown effects of the pandemic. All articles in this print issue will be online as well. More of our usual articles are only available online. As I said this is an experiment. Let us know what you think please Your (transitioned?) editor.
Rumors continued from page 1 Charleston Conference 2021 Goes Hybrid! We are looking forward to an in-person Charleston Conference November 1-5 2021! We will also offer a virtual component of the conference to accommodate the many remote attendees that we had last year! We will continue to use the Pathable platform for the virtual conference. Of course, many of us like, welcome, and long for in-person interactions as well! The theme of the 2021 Conference will be “ON THE ROAD AGAIN.” The call for papers will be released in April. The Charleston Conference proceedings are moving from Purdue University Press to the University of Michigan and its Fulcrum platform beginning with the 2020 volume. Purdue will continue to host the past conference proceedings. They will also host Against the Grain and its archive. Just heard from the glamorous Jennifer Jessup at the Gaillard Center <jjessup@gaillardcenter.com>. Remember that Jennifer has moved from the Francis Marion Hotel to the Gaillard Center. Since the SC Governor has lifted COVID restrictions on large gatherings, the Gaillard is working on some new occupancy guidelines for the 2021 Charleston Conference. Sounds encouraging!
Documentary of Charleston Conference history is in the works. More conference news. The bam zowie Eleanor Cook has worked tirelessly on a hopeful Charleston Conference Documentary with Charles Germain. That was long before COVID hit and put everything on hiatus. Now Eleanor will be finishing up her gig at East Carolina at the end of June 2021 and relocating back to Boone, NC based on the sale of her Greenville house. Meanwhile Charles Germain will return from Brazil on March 15. Charles and his wife Andrea are being tested for COVID on the 11th. Assuming all is negative, Charles has committed himself to help the Charleston Conference team with a video history of some sort. Moving right along, Charles will be busy with another documentary and a short narration film this year. Isn’t it interesting how Charles has moved into film making continued on page 35
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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> Editor’s Note: Hey, are y’all reading this? If you know of an article that should be called to Against the Grain’s attention ... send an email to <kstrauch@comcast.net>. We’re listening! — KS
Missing That Time-Waster
Sherlock for the Masses
Among all the work-from-home Covid crowd, there are quite a few who miss the commute. Yes, that horrible slog on bus, train or car provided an emotional dividing line between work and leisure. Many used it to listen to podcasts and phone friends. Social media is a-buzz with chatter about “fake commutes.” People get up, swill coffee, put on real clothes and walk around the block. Some drive downtown for coffee, timing it so they can hit some gridlock. See: Jennifer Levitz, “The Office Commute is Gone, So Workers Make One Up,” The Wall Street Journal, Jan. 12, 2021, p.A1.
Sherlock Holmes first appeared in 1887. Since Conan Doyle’s death, Holmes has been endlessly rewritten and has only been beaten in film appearances by Dracula. Benedict Cumberbatch and Enola Holmes are the latest rages. Some authors have now written more Holmes than Doyle.
Publisher Plug The Bookseller gives a major front cover and inside plug to Joffe Books, a UK independent publisher. www. Joffebooks.com. Founded in 2014 by Jasper Joffe, they are going great guns. One book sold every eleven seconds. Ten million books sold since 2014. See: The Bookseller, Front Cover, Jan. 8, 2021.
Chegging Your Way to a 4.0 For a mere $14.95/month, a college student can sign up for Chegg Study, a database of 46 million textbook and exam problem answers backed by 70,000 STEM experts in India. Students freely admit they use it to blatantly cheat. And use has exploded by 69% since colleges went virtual. The Chegg CEO insists it was designed as a tutor in the on-demand economy. Students excuse the cheating as “everyone else is doing it.” And faculty have just thrown up their hands. After all, they’re probably preoccupied with the terror of being cancelled for some slip of the tongue. See: Susan Adams, “Cheat For Profit,” Forbes, Feb-March, 2021, p.73.
Hydroponic Garden: Yea or Nay? The pro argument is they’re as easy to use as a Keurig. Pop in pods of seeds, growth medium, fill reservoir. Hit a button and watch the results in 25 days. LED lights play role of sunlight; fertilizer and moisture are regulated by the device. $100 for a toaster-sized Sprout target.com. Or go larger with the $260 Smart Garden clickandgrow.com. Endless salad picked fresh that day. The con side is very negative. Says we’ve updated the $64 garden tomato with $100 arugula. Produces barely half a salad and then you must wait for a new grow. And it lacks the taste of veg grown in soil. See: Laurie Stephans and Matthew Kronsberg, “Should You Grow Veggies Indoors With a Hydroponic Garden?,” The Wall Street Journal, Feb. 20-21, 2021, p.D11.
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Against the Grain / February 2021
The Doyle estate initially tried to fight these adaptations, but finally has thrown in the towel. They can grant or deny a seal of approval of the writing, but no reader seems to notice. Perhaps the final battle came with Enola Holmes. The estate argued the tales show a warmer Holmes, a trait only depicted in the later stories which remain under copyright in the U.S. The case was dismissed. Holmes showed emotion in many of the public domain stories. In 2022, the final stories will be free of copyright, and the imitators can mention Watson’s second wife and his love of rugby. See: Alison Flood, “I think I’ve written more Sherlock Holmes than even Conan Doyle’: the ongoing fight to reimagine Holmes.” The Guardian U.S. Edition, Feb. 4, 2021.
Let’s Read Lives of Literary Lesbians Diana Souhami, The Trials of Radclyffe Hall (1998) (her groundbreaking Well of Loneliness was put on trial for obscenity); (2) Gertrude Stein, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (1933) (while the Left Bank geniuses talked to Stein, the wives talked to Toklas); (3) Sybille Bedford, A Compass Error (1968) (autobiographical Bedford novel); (4) Lisa Cohen, All We Knkow: Three Lives (2012) (lives of three 20th-century lesbians; Esther Murphy was the lover of Sybille Bedford); (5) Brenda Wineapple, Genêt: A Biography of Janet Flanner (1989) (Flanner was Paris Correspondent of the New Yorker from 1925 to 1975; known to colleagues as “a gentleman of the press in skirts”). See: Selina Hastings, “Five Best,” The Wall Street Journal, Feb. 20-21, 2021, p.C8. Selina is the author of ‘Sybille Bedford: A Life.’
Etiquette Guide for the ‘Burbs With a major nationwide flight to the ‘burbs, urban denizens are finding themselves in a land with new rules. Major tips: When someone waves, respond enthusiastically. Neither excessive nor insufficient holiday décor. Study the neighbors. Let a season pass before you don your décor persona. Beware inappropriate hors d’oeuvres at those neighborhood dinner parties. Pigs In a Blanket hit the sweet spot for situational awareness. They even work with black tie. See: Kris Frieswick, “Love Thy Neighbors,” The Wall Street Journal, Feb. 19, 2921, p.M6.
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Building the Data Epoch continued from page 1 overcome the challenges of new technology because of their passion. But seasoned product managers know that scaling is a process. You build your prototype for those innovators and then you build version 1.0 for the early adopters, the authors who want to publish their data if only someone would make it easy to do. Once you work out the kinks in version 1.0, you launch version 2.0 for the early majority. These are the authors who know they probably should publish their data, but they need an innovator or early adopter to show them how or guilt them into it. Together, these innovators, early adopters and early majority could represent nearly 50% of the target population. Most of these authors will respond to carrots, so long as they’re the right carrots. But the next group to target are the late majority and they will need some serious convincing. They’ll go along, but only if doing so is easier than resisting. Getting their participation requires robust infrastructure and lots of support. This group may need mandates and other sticks as incentive to participate. The last group are the laggards who will only participate if they must; getting their useful participation will require maximum effort. The answer, of course, is both carrots and sticks: carrots first, to encourage the willing, and then sticks, to encourage the unwilling. Do it the other way around and neither group will play their proper role. This process may seem complicated, but when patiently executed, this strategy promises to unlock a new era where data reuse is common and expected.
Against the Grain / February 2021
So, now it’s time to meet our innovators. These are the folks with the passion to overcome challenges and show us all how to unlock the potential of primary research data. Let’s start with Bob Hanson, Professor of Chemistry at St. Olaf College in an interview about FAIRSpec, a project that supposes finding aids are the key to connecting chemistry articles to their spectroscopic data. Next, Christopher Eaker from University of Tennessee Libraries describes how the data curation process adds the secret ingredient for making research data useful. Finally, Alberto Pepe from Atypon with Matteo Cavalleri and Babak Mostaghaci from Wiley share a case study on publishing “papers” that you wouldn’t want to print. You won’t even want the PDF. You’ll need to experience these digital publications online, as they were intended. Channel your inner product manager as you read these accounts and join us in dreaming up the innovations that will enable all of the Academy to participate.
References Wikipedia. (n.d.). Technology adoption lifecycle. Retrieved on February 5, 2021 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_adoption_life_cycle.
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FAIRSpec, Finding Aids for Primary Research Data Interview by Jeff Lang (Assistant Director, Platform Development, ACS Publications) <J_Lang@acs.org>
B
ob Hanson is Professor of Chemistry at St. Olaf College and Principal Developer of Jmol, an open source viewer of chemical structures in 3D. He is Task Group Chair of the IUPAC FAIRSpec project, which is creating standards for sharing spectroscopic data. This interview has been edited for clarity. Jeff Lang: Bob, let’s start with the basics. What is FAIR? Bob Hanson: In 2016, the “FAIR Guiding Principles for scientific data management and stewardship” were published in Scientific Data (2016) and elaborated more fully by go-fair.org. The authors intended to provide guidelines to improve the findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reuse of digital assets. The principles emphasize machine-actionability (GO FAIR, 2020), as much as just personal use by humans. By the way, I interpret this as FAIR (data management), not (FAIR data) management. Which is to say that this isn’t really about the data or the structure of the data. It’s what is associated with the data (the metadata) and the way the metadata are managed that make for FAIR or “unFAIR.” There’s a great YouTube animation created by NYU Health Science Libraries of a hypothetical discussion between a scientist who has published a paper and an oncologist who is interested in reusing the original data in the area of oncology [https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=N2zK3sAtr-4] (2012). The oncologist asks the author about their data and whether she can have a copy of it. You really have to watch this, because it will give you a great sense of why we’re doing this and why this is just a nightmare right now in terms of people trying to reuse data that authors have published. The most interesting thing about it, I think, is that the author, though perhaps reticent, is trying to be helpful. They’re not saying, “No, you can’t have my data.” They’re saying, “Well, I did everything I thought I was supposed to do. Why is there a problem here?” “Seven months later” the oncologist is saying, “OK, I have the data now, and I still don’t know how to use it.” It really makes the point effectively that FAIR is not just “delivering the data.” FAIR means making the data available and reusable. JL: Now, let’s move onto FAIRSpec, how is it different from the FAIR standards? BH: Well, FAIRSpec is our nickname for a project of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry — the “world authority on chemical nomenclature and terminology.” It’s a project started in March of 2020 titled Development of a Standard for FAIR Data Management of Spectroscopic Data. It’s a little niche here — chemistry and spectroscopy. Nonetheless, it’s a very important part of our field and particularly important for publishing. The project’s stated objective is “to apply FAIR data principles to spectroscopic data management in the field of chemistry building on IUPAC’s extensive expertise in this area. The project will develop standards for the production and dissemination of digital data objects that contain enough spectral data and metadata that they can be (a) findable through semantic searches on the web, (b) available through standard interfaces, (c) interoperable and transferable between systems, and (d) readable and reusable over time, both for humans and machines.” (IUPAC, 2020) Okay, so basically we intend to design a set of standards for this particular area of chemistry and this particular need in
10 Against the Grain / February 2021
the area of spectroscopy. The project is not about implementation — IUPAC doesn’t do implementation. But obviously we want to work closely with the people who would be implementing and will be trying to do some prototyping ourselves along the way. The key is that, for example, we want to make sure that a 300 gigabyte package of data does not have to be downloaded off the web just to find out that you are not interested in it. One of the visions that I have is that the supporting document PDF for publication would be completely replaced by something like a finding aid that would be much more flexible and much more valuable than a simple PDF. In fact, the finding aid could be used to recreate customized supporting information on the fly, if it’s done right. JL: The concept of a finding aid is from library science and archiving. How does that relate to Supporting Information? BH: I’m drawing a parallel between what we’re doing in the area of scientific data management to the area of archival science, which is a field interested in the preservation of artifacts in the form of an archive in such a way as to make them available to future scholars and/or the public. Sure sounds like FAIR data management to me. Digital archiving specifically deals with electronic preservation of information relating to physical or virtual artifacts. These digital archiving practices have been widely used by the Library of Congress, the Bodleian Library, and archives such as the United States National Archives. I became familiar with this through discussions with the Minnesota Historical Society. One of the unique concepts of archiving is this idea of a fonds, defined by the Society of American Archivists as the entire body of records of an organization, family, or individual that have been created and accumulated as the result of an organic process reflecting the functions of the creator (SAA Dictionary, n.d.). Or, as Wikipedia defines it, a group of documents that share the same origin and that have occurred naturally as an outgrowth of the daily workings of an agency, individual, or organization (Wikipedia, n.d.). So, what is a paper or publication in science? It’s the summation of the daily workings of a group or individual on a very specific topic and associated with a set of data. I think there’s a great connection. I think there’s a lot we can learn from the digital archival community in relation to FAIR spectroscopy or FAIR data management. Here’s the parallel that I’m trying to make: I’m not going to say that what we have is a fonds. But a fonds does relate to a specific individual or organization, and a scientific paper reports the work of a research group or collaboration relating to a specific topic. A fonds is a collection of related objects. Well, the paper and its associated supporting information comprise a collection of digital objects, too. In fact, it is the relationship between all these objects that is often the most interesting aspect of a collection. An archive of fonds involves digital curation. But in chemistry right now we have no systematic curation of the data at all. So I’m making the case that people who are interested in scientific FAIR data management could learn a lot from digital archivists, since they have been doing this for a long time. One of the things that I’ve found particularly interesting in discussions with digital archivists is the idea that when a box of historical records comes into a library or a museum and it
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needs to be catalogued, you get what you get. You can’t demand that the data is in a certain format. You can’t transform it into different formats. It’s a book, it’s a set of papers, it’s a bunch of photographs, it’s whatever it is, digital or otherwise. The task of curation is to produce a finding aid — a description of the contents of that box that allows a researcher to make a query and find the description of this box along with enough information associated with it, so that the they know right off the bat if this is something that is valuable to them or not. So they don’t have to hunt down the actual box and search through it. JL: So the finding aid helps people to know where to look for the material which may still be interoperable or not and reusable or not, but it helps you to understand whether to spend your time on it. BH: Right. It’s the finding aid and that’s the critical thing here. I want to tell you a quick story here. Back in 2006, I got interested in Willard Gibbs, a famous guy in thermodynamics who was at Yale at the turn of the 20th century. I contacted Yale’s Sterling Library by email and asked, “Do you have anything about Gibbs?” And they said, “Well, it seems we have a box somewhere in our archives, and it says ‘Gibbs’ on it, but we don’t have a finding aid for it, so I can’t tell you what’s in it. Do you want me to go get the box and find out what’s in there?” And I said, “No! I’ll be there on Thursday!” I just got on a plane and went to Yale, because I wanted to see what was in the box for myself. It turned out that inside the box was a bound volume of all of Gibbs’s lectures written out verbatim for a full year — three times a week for a full year. They were just a goldmine for me. If I had had a finding aid, it wouldn’t have been hardly as much fun, but certainly would have been easier. In a digital archive, sometimes all you have is a 200 MB zip file. The last thing you want to do is force a researcher to download and search through it themselves just to discover that there’s nothing there for them. This is the critical connecting point, I think, between these two fields. The field of digital archival science is well advanced, and they have digital tools with specifications for the production and delivery of the metadata that allow finding actual objects. They call this the digital finding aid and it’s really the F in FAIR. And it also has to do with the A in FAIR, because finding aids can be presented within a framework that allows access to them and searchability of them.
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Here’s an example: When you search for American Chemical Society at the Minnesota Historical Society, you get this beautiful website that talks about the American Chemical Society — Minnesota Section. If you look behind the page, you discover that it’s just an XML file styled to be presented as a web page. It uses this great system called “Encoded Archival Description” (EAD) that was produced by the Library of Congress and collaborators some years ago for the production of digital finding aids. The point is that digital archivists are way ahead of us. They have already figured out how to do what we’re trying to do. My idea is that we might be able to apply this. It’s important to understand that any finding aid is a highly curated document. An archivist may have spent months preparing the EAD describing the documents. The reason the process is so time consuming is that each fonds is so heterogeneous. It may contain anything from us scribbling on a piece of paper to a fully developed manuscript, a set of photographs or a stamp collection - just about anything. Our job is a lot easier because we’re talking about structured digital information — chemical identifiers and structure files, experimental procedures, spectral data files, and other results of analyses — a relatively trivial case in the realm of digital archiving.
Against the Grain / February 2021
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JL: How is FAIRSpec different from supporting information that’s already available with published articles? BH: This is a really good question. So, an important use case is the publication of articles relating to research that involves spectroscopic analysis. For example, papers in the area of synthetic organic chemistry or natural products chemistry often have supporting information files. Maybe a 50-100 page PDF with a Table of Contents. So, why isn’t it FAIR? First, although the supporting information PDF is findable — it has a DOI associated with it (or at least its associated article does) — we have no idea what chemical compounds are involved. A Table of Contents doesn’t cut it. In terms of interoperability, it’s a zero. Even if we have a reasonably good Table of Contents, how would we ever know if there is something that we really want to look at? I routinely pull down supporting information and dig through it, trying to try to find something that interests me. Half the time it’s not there. All my time is wasted. In addition, how could I ever pull this “data” into a workflow other than just reading through it? And what about reuse? Again, a zero. This isn’t even the data itself. It’s a facsimile, designed to support the claims in the article. Reuse is about making the actual data available in a way that could lead to unknown, unpredicted uses at the time of publication. JL: Supporting information, that’s not the same as making data findable or FAIR? BH: Right. So, I’m the author and I think I’m being FAIR. All my information is being stored in Zenodo. Question, what’s the difference between Zenodo and a flash drive? Answer, Zenodo is bigger. So, here I’m making the distinction between a digital entity and a digital object. A data collection that has no curation, no finding aid, no metadata, is just a data dump. It’s potentially of some use, but it’s nowhere close to FAIR. The box of historical records comes into the library as a bunch of (presumably) related entities. It is curation that turns those entities into valuable objects. Same for scientific data. The idea is that a digital entity is anything, but a digital object is part of a metadata structure that connects it to other data, provides a context, and produces value. And the key there is good curation. I think the point that we really want to make here is this idea of digital entity vs. digital object. Just having the data is a first step, but it’s not at all FAIR because we don’t know anything about the data, it’s just a bunch of bits. A data collection starts as a set of digital entities; our project’s job is to create a system by which curators can process those bits into a meaningfully connected set of digital objects. JL: And is that curation process happening anywhere right now? BH: Well, it is certainly happening in some fields. Crystallographers determine 3D molecular structures and deposit those structures in databases that catalogue them and make them findable via a web portal. Structural biology has this huge set of data that is accessible, findable, and standardized in the form of the Protein Data Bank. So, yeah, there’s a lot of curation that’s being done — just not in chemistry. All we have are these PDF supplemental information files. We don’t have the data in any kind of structured way that could be usable. It’s time to get with the program! Here’s our problem: The picture of a spectral graph by itself is useless unless you know what chemical compound is associated with it. Now, a supporting information PDF right now is generally organized by compounds. They’ll show a little picture of the compound and then they’ll describe the experimental procedure. Then they’ll have a bunch of pictures of spectra following, so
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you have that physical proximity. Since this is the paragraph about this particular compound, this must be the spectrum of that compound. But, it’s all visual. JL: So, how will this support reproducibility in science? BH: Well, I would say reproducibility is one thing, but it’s not really what we’re interested in here. What we’re really interested in is reuse. Scientists finding use for data — the raw data — that may have nothing at all to do with the original use. Educational uses of actual data, comparison studies, investigations related to spectroscopic data itself — that sort of thing. FAIRSpec is about opening doors that we don’t even know exist yet. JL: So what will authors need to do differently to make this happen? BH: The first thing that authors can do is to make sure that their actual spectroscopic data is not just on some flash drive somewhere. It needs to go into a repository such as Zenodo or the California Digital Library. And it needs some up-front curation. At the very least, identifying the chemical compound that relates to a specific spectrum. But, alas, we don’t have a standard for that — yet! JL: When FAIRSpec is something that they can use, what will be the benefit to the authors for the extra time it takes to make these connections? BH: We want scientists demanding that their data be available, not dreading the task of making it so. I think if you put it the right way to PIs — that a little extra effort by a graduate student will make their life (at Ph.D. time) and the graduate student’s work (all along) more efficient, they will listen. Then they need to demand that their data be allowed to be FAIR and be rewarded for that. That’s where institutions can help — at tenure time, for example. JL: So, what can libraries and publishers do to make this happen? BH: Right now, I would say author and institutional education. We want to get the word out that the data itself is important. Anything less than putting your data up at a repository for investigation by others is insufficient. Even that is insufficient, if the metadata is not there to make sense of it. There’s no doubt in my mind that the culture is there, but researchers just don’t know how to do the FAIR thing right now. JL: The FAIRSpec project is looking for collaborators and Bob is eager to talk with anyone who’d like to participate. He can be reached at <hansonr@stolaf.edu>.
References GO FAIR. (2020). FAIR Principals. https://www.go-fair.org/ fair-principles/ IUPAC. (2020). Project Details - IUPAC | International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry. https://iupac.org/projects/project-details/?project_nr=2019-031-1-024 NYU Health Sciences Library. (2012, December 19). Data Sharing and Management Snafu in 3 Short Acts [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2zK3sAtr-4 SAA Dictionary. (n.d.). Fonds. Retrieved on February 5, 2021 from https://dictionary.archivists.org/entry/fonds.html. Wilkinson, M. D., Dumontier, M., Aalbersberg, I. J., Appleton, G., Axton, M., Baak, A., . . . Mons, B. (2016). The FAIR Guiding Principles for scientific data management and stewardship. Scientific Data, 3(1). doi:10.1038/sdata.2016.18 Wikipedia. (n.d.). Fonds. Retrieved on February 5, 2021 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fonds.
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The Curation Process Adds Value to Primary Research Data and is Key to its Usability By Christopher Eaker (Data Curation Librarian, University of Tennessee Libraries) <ceaker@utk.edu>
P
rimary research data, the data collected directly as part of the research process, is increasingly being included as an essential part of the article publication process. Over the years, research funders and journal publishers have been asking researchers to take better care of their data; as a result, datasets have come to be seen as valuable assets that must be preserved and shared rather than by-products of the research process (Uhlir, 2010). Much data is produced in research projects and including these datasets as high-class counterparts to the articles they support helps to “shed light” on these datasets which in the past were part of the dark “long tail” of data (Heidorn, 2008). Reasons to make data publicly available include discovering new results from existing data, reproducing and verifying the results of research, and meeting funder or journal requirements (Borgman, 2012). Most federal funders and many journal publishers require the primary data to be made public at the same time as the article (Briney et al, 2017). Authors and researchers have struggled to meet this demand for a number of reasons, not the least of which being the additional effort involved in preparing a dataset for archiving and publication. For years, many university
Against the Grain / February 2021
libraries have been building services targeted at this process to aid researchers in preparing their datasets for archiving and preservation. This process is called data curation and has been formalized by the Data Curation Network (DCN) using the acronym C.U.R.A.T.E.D. (Johnston et al, 2018). These steps are explained below. University of Illinois School of Information Sciences defines data curation as “the active and on-going management of data through its lifecycle of interest and usefulness to scholarship, science, and education (n.d.).” The keywords here are active and ongoing. As mentioned, datasets do not automatically prepare themselves for archiving and publication; they must be actively prepared by a data curator. Further, they must be assessed in an ongoing manner to ensure they are available over the long term. Curated data is better suited for publication alongside articles since it is better prepared. That extra preparation directly and positively impacts its discoverability and its usability. Additional tangential benefits include a higher citation count for the articles that include the data (Christensen et al 2019; Piwowar & Vision, 2013). However, even though journal publishers are increasingly including data availability policies in their author instructions, additional citations do not necessarily follow without enforcement of these policies (Christensen et al, 2019).
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While many publishers have data availability policies, some are taking a hands-off approach and trusting the authors to submit their data to a place others can access it. Others are taking a stricter stance. The publisher Science has stated their data availability policy with strong wording: “Science Journals generally require all data underlying the results in published papers to be publicly and immediately available,” and “Citations to unpublished data...cannot be used to support significant claims in the paper” (Science Editorial Board). As more data is made openly accessible as a part of journal articles or federal funder requirements, the importance of data curation can not be over-emphasized. Data is not intrinsically useful. Furthermore, datasets do not simply become useful because they are publicly available. Data is useful only insofar as it meets the needs of the user. Likewise, more data does not mean more value (Binggeser, 2017). Data is of the highest value for those who collected it. Others who were not involved in the data collection and analysis efforts can find data less useful for their needs, especially if the data is not properly curated. Including as supplemental information a dataset that has not been properly prepared for public use reduces the usefulness of the data. Data must be cleaned and prepared properly for it to be useful. And this process does not happen by accident; it must be purposely conducted by someone trained in properly curating a dataset for public use (Johnston et al, 2018). It is difficult to say how much value other user groups would place on data. Data that has no value beyond the data creator today may be far more useful in the future. Palmer, Weber, and Cragin (2011) identified three areas of assessment to determine the value of a publicly available dataset: preservation readiness, potential user communities, and fit for purpose. Curating a dataset increases its preservation readiness, thereby increasing its fit for purpose within a specific community and increasing its usability by other potential user communities. Data that is well prepared has a higher value than data that is not well prepared. Curating the dataset increases the chances it can be used as secondary research data by user communities outside of the original. As datasets get reused by more and more user communities, their value increases (Uhlir, 2010). What value does the curation process provide for data? The data curation steps formalized by the DCN in the C.U.R.A.T.E.D. acronym include the following: Check (the files for completeness and viability), Understand (the contents), Request (additional information), Augment (metadata), Transform (to open formats), Evaluate (for FAIRness), and Document (the curation process) (Johnston et al, 2018). When checking the files for completeness, data curators must ensure that all necessary files, including metadata records, are included in the dataset prior to publishing. They must also check viability by ensuring that all files are complete within themselves, contain accurate information, and load in appropriate software packages properly. If files are missing or corrupt, their usefulness to others suffers. Understanding the data files’ contents may be the most difficult part of the curation process, as most data curators do not have expertise in the discipline represented within the files. This should not deter them for performing this task. Putting themselves in the position of someone needing to reuse the dataset, the data curator attempts to determine if enough information is present to understand and make adequate use of it. When information is discovered to be missing, or additional information would assist in understanding the dataset, the
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curator requests this information from the data creator. This additional information augments the full package that is archived openly. The metadata is expanded so that as much information is available as possible, which aids in discovery and later reuse of the dataset. As the pool of potential user groups for a dataset widens, the descriptive information needs to be more detailed. Ideally, the data creator will provide the data files in a format that is preservation ready. In other words, the data files will be in open formats not tied to a proprietary software package. If not, the data curator will transform them as needed. Data files in open formats are far less likely to become obsolete over time. Archived datasets can include both the original, often proprietary, file format as well as the open format. The availability of both provides access to a wider pool of potential user groups. When all these tasks have been complete, the data curator will evaluate whether or not the dataset is considered FAIR, another acronym meaning “Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable.” These principles were developed so that data users can “more easily discover, access, interoperate, and sensibly re-use” the data being created (FORCE11, n.d.). As all curation tasks are conducted and completed, the data curator must document each step along the way. This documentation provides a backdrop for the current state of the data and the context in which the data is provided. New users will be interested in this information to determine how the dataset was changed from the point of submission to the point of being accessed for their use. As more journals require authors to make their data publicly available along with articles, the skills data curation specialists offer and the services they provide will become more important. More information science graduate programs are training new crops of information specialists to become data curators. These positions often lie within the university libraries where librarians have a strong reputation for describing and organizing information for access. Funders and journal publishers have a vested interest in helping authors make their data FAIR, i.e., usable by others. FAIR data will be key to reversing the reproducibility crisis and providing the foundations to build upon current research and extend the boundaries of knowledge (Weir, 2015, Baker, 2016 & Jeffries, 2019). Data curation is the first step in this process. Researchers who must make data publicly available are encouraged to seek the expertise of a competent data curator to help them prepare their data prior to archiving.
References Baker, M. (2016). Reproducibility crisis. Nature, 533(26), 353-366. Binggeser, P. (2017). Data does not have intrinsic value. towards data science. Retrieved January 28, 2021, from https:// towardsdatascience.com/data-does-not-have-intrinsic-value2824c2409d86. Board, J. E. (2014). The article is not enough: Introducing the jlsc data sharing policy. Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication, 2(3), 1186. doi:10.7710/2162-3309.1186 Board, S. E. Science journals: Editorial policies. Retrieved from Science website: https://www.sciencemag.org/authors/science-journals-editorial-policies. Borgman, C. L. (2012). The conundrum of sharing research data. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 63(6), 1059-1078. doi:10.1002/asi.22634 continued on page 16
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Integrating and Publishing Research Data: Two Experiments with Authorea By Alberto Pepe (Sr. Director of Strategy and Innovation, Atypon) <apepe@atypon.com> and Matteo Cavalleri (Publisher, Wiley) <mcavalleri@wiley.com> and Babak Mostaghaci (Editor, Wiley-VCH) <bmostaghac@wiley.com>
W
hy are scientific ideas disseminated via “papers”? Is a paper the best way to share and publish research results today? Obviously, the paper format (which has resisted the demise of print, thanks to the “online PDF”), being so enduring and persistent, has served science well. But things have changed in the last three decades. The recent explosion of content digitalization, growing Internet speed and connectivity, and reliance on data, code, and computational power to perform research are leading to an unprecedented and irreversible path to changing the way we publish and disseminate research ideas. A Gutenberg-style revolution in scholarly communication is upon us, and we believe it is being pioneered by the Open Science movement. The Open Science initiative aims to make scientific research and its dissemination accessible, reproducible, and transparent. In addition to encouraging publication of research freely and openly as early as possible (the availability of preprints in subject-based repositories has moved beyond the realm of physics), for many computational domains, Open Science translates into making code and data available to everyone, and into practicing “open notebook” science. In other words: readers and reviewers must be able to understand how the authors produced the computational results, which parameters were used for the analysis, and how manipulations to these parameters affect the results. Increasingly, journals and funding agencies are mandating that researchers share their code and data when reporting on computational results based on code and data. However, even when data and code are provided by authors, and published, they are oftentimes just posted as links and relegated to platforms entirely separated from publishing workflows, disconnected from the published “full text.” Since code, data, and text are not linked on a deep level, readers and reviewers are faced with barriers that hinder their ability to understand and retrace how the authors achieved a specific result.
entific article of the future, offering 3D interactive graphs, data and code integration as well as open, transparent publication of peer-review reports. The authors of these published articles were asked to upload their data, code, notebooks, and visualizations onto the preprint version of their manuscripts on Authorea. This allowed the editor, peer reviewers, and the general public to peruse research data and code while the manuscripts were undergoing peer review. Upon acceptance, these rich media — research data, code, and notebooks — were pushed onto the Literatum hosting platform which powers the Wiley Online Library, allowing the final, published “Version of Record” to feature primary research data and code. An example of such published enhanced article is available at Open Chemistry, JupyterLab, REST, and quantum chemistry – Hanwell – 2021 – International Journal of Quantum Chemistry (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ qua.26472). A GIF below (Fig. 1) shows some of the interactive feature (rotation and zooming) enabled by this experiment, on the article’s Version of Record. Note: sadly and ironically, the publication in which you are reading this document may not support GIFs, so Fig. 1 may look like a static image. Letting peer-reviewers assess the richer, more interactive version of the manuscripts on the Authorea preprint rather than their flatter, “dumber” PDF counterparts also facilitated the deposition and subsequent publication (upon acceptance of the article in the journal) of the reviewers’ reports on Authorea (For example (Remigio, 2020)). The integration of preprints with journal workflows allowed another experiment on a pillar of open research: transparent peer-review!
Today we’d like to report on two recent experiments that take a considerable step in the direction of making research data better integrated within publishing workflows and publications. These experiments were performed by Atypon with two Wiley journals: the International Journal of Quantum Chemistry (IJQC – https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/1097461x) and Advanced Intelligent Systems (AISY – https://onlinelibrary.wiley. com/journal/26404567). Both experiments involve the use of the preprint platform Authorea to ingest, deliver, and render primary research data and connect it to the final publication, hosted on the Wiley Online Library. The first experiment we report on is the publication of the first set of research articles (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/ page/journal/1097461x/homepage/interactivearticle_vi.html) in IJQC featuring interactive visualizations and integrated source data and code: (Peverati, 2020; Griego et al., 2020; Folmsbee & Hutchison, 2020; Pablo-García et al., 2020; Hanwell et al., 2020). These papers provide a glimpse in this vision of the sci-
Against the Grain / February 2021
Rotation and Zooming of Molecular Structure from (Hanwell et al., 2020)
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The second experiment focuses specifically on Supporting Information (SI). It’s a well-known secret in scholarly publishing that Supporting Information are the graveyard of data. Overlooked by reviewers, ignored by readers, self-standing Supporting Information PDFs are rarely downloaded together with their companion papers despite containing a trove of potentially useful data. Why? Because Supporting Information are treated as data dumps and they are not easily searchable and machine readable. Readers usually don’t show interest in the Supporting Information as there is no proper way to visualize raw data in order to make it easily comprehensible for the readers. Besides, citing data in the Supporting Information is not that straight-forward as the DOI of the main paper cannot be used for this purpose. There is no good reason for SI to be this way. In partnership with AISY, we created an Authorea Collection (https://authorea.com/inst/21456) which functions as the main repository for AISY’s “Smart” Supporting Information. Authors who are accepted for publication in the AISY journal are asked if they have supplementary output such as data, code, videos, notebooks, and visualizations that they would like to publish alongside their paper. Instead of the regular route to deposit and publish Supplementary Information, they can opt to deposit their outputs via AISY’s Smart SI page, which allows them to render videos, visualizations, data, and notebooks in a more dynamic fashion, instead of a static download link at the end of a research article. According to author feedback, data-supported figures are the most popular feature of our innovative supplementary material route. Moreover, “Smart” Supplementary Materials are registered with a DOI, allowing authors to be cited for the deposited information. The collection of articles featuring “Smart” Supplementary Information is available at: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/toc/10.1002/(ISSN)2640-4567. Smart-Supporting-Information (it is constantly being updated with new papers).
References Folmsbee, D., & Hutchison, G. (2020). Assessing conformer energies using electronic structure and 2 machine learning methods. International Journal of Quantum Chemistry. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1002%2Fqua.26381. doi: 10.1002/ qua.26381. Griego, C. D., Kitchin, J. R., & Keith, J. A. (2020). Acceleration of catalyst discovery with easy fast, and reproducible computational alchemy. International Journal of Quantum Chemistry. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1002%2Fqua.26380. doi: 10.1002/qua.26380. Hanwell, M. D., Harris, C., Genova, A., Haghighatlari, M., Khatib, M. E., Avery, P., . . . de Jong, W. A. (2020b). Open Chemistry, JupyterLab REST and Quantum Chemistry. Retrieved from https:// doi.org/10.22541%2Fau.158687268.81852407%2Fv2. doi: 10.22541/au.158687268.81852407/v2. Pablo-Garcia, S., Alvarez-Moreno, M., & L´opez, N. (2020, jul). Turning chemistry into information for ´ heterogeneous catalysis. International Journal of Quantum Chemistry. Retrieved from https:// doi.org/10.1002%2Fqua.26382. doi: 10.1002/qua.26382 Peverati, R. (2020). Fitting elephants in the density functionals zoo: Statistical criteria for the evaluation of density functional theory methods as a suitable replacement for counting parameters. International Journal of Quantum Chemistry. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1002%2Fqua.26379. doi: 10 .1002/qua.26379 Remigio, R. D. (2020). Review for: Open Chemistry, JupyterLab REST and Quantum Chemistry. Retrieved from https:// doi.org/10.22541%2Fau.159906594.42729025. doi: 10.22541/ au.159906594 .42729025
These two experiments attempt to bring research data closer to scholarly publications, and are a step forward towards a fully reproducible, open data, transparent publishing workflow.
The Curation Process Adds Value to Primary Research Data ... continued from page 14 Briney, K., Goben, A., & Zilinski, L. (2017). Institutional, funder, and journal data policies. In L. Johnston (Ed.), Curating research data: Practical strategies for your digital repository: Association of College and Research Libraries.
Mcgeary, T.M., Hull, E., and Coburn, E. 2018. Data curation network: A cross-institutional staffing model for curating research data. International Journal of Digital Curation, 13(1), pp.125-140. doi:10.2218/ijdc.v13i1.616.
Christensen, G., Dafoe, A., Miguel, E., Moore, D. A., & Rose, A. K. (2019). A study of the impact of data sharing on article citations using journal policies as a natural experiment. PLoS ONE, 14(12), e0225883. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0225883
Palmer, C. L., Weber, N. M., & Cragin, M. H. (2011). The analytic potential of scientific data: Understanding reuse value. Proceedings of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 48(1), 1-10. doi:10.1002/meet.2011.14504801174
FORCE11 (n.d.) Guiding principles for findable, accessible, interoperable, and re-useable data. Retrieved January 28, 2021, from https://www.force11.org/fairprinciples.
Piwowar, H. A., & Vision, T. J. (2013). Data reuse and the open data citation advantage. PeerJ, 1, e175. doi:10.7717/peerj.175
Heidorn, P. B. (2008). Shedding light on the dark data in the long tail of science. Library Trends, 57(2), 280-299. doi:10.1353/ lib.0.0036. Jeffries, J. (2019, November 18). Living in the reproducibility crisis. Early Career Research Community, PLoS blogs. Retrieved January 28, 2021 from https://ecrcommunity.plos.org/2019/11/18/ living-in-the-reproducibility-crisis/. Johnston, L.R., Carlson, J., Hudson-Vitale, C., Imker, H., Kozlowski, W., Olendorf, R., Stewart, C., Blake, M., Herndon, J.,
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Uhlir, P. F. (2010). Information gulags, intellectual straightjackets, and memory holes: Three principles to guide the preservation of scientific data. Data Science Journal, 9, ES1-ES5. doi:10.2481/dsj.Essay-001-Uhlir University of Illinois School of Information Sciences. (n.d.) Data Curation. Retrieved January 27, 2021 from https://ischool. illinois.edu/research/areas/data-curation. Weir, K. (2015, October). A reproducibility crisis? Monitor on Psychology, 46(9). Retrieved January 28, 2021 from http://www. apa.org/monitor/2015/10/share-reproducibility.
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Reader’s Roundup: Monographic Musings & Reference Reviews Column Editor: Corey Seeman (Director, Kresge Library Services, Stephen M. Ross School of Business, University of Michigan; Cell Phone: 734-717-9734) <cseeman@umich.edu> Twitter @cseeman Column Editor’s Note: Well…its 2021…we should be all “back to normal,” right? That means jammed libraries and incoming shipments from publishers and book vendors. That means crowded campuses with students everywhere they can fit in-between classes. That means classes in relatively small rooms where faculty guild the discussion and the discovery of knowledge.
This work is part of a four-title multi-volume series from Salem Press: the Critical Survey of Graphic Novels. All volumes now appear in second editions, including Heroes & Superheroes (2nd ed., 2018); Manga (2nd ed., 2018); and Independents & Underground Classics (2nd ed., 2019 – Editor’s note: Reviewed in ATG v.32#5, November 2020). Originally published in 2012, the second edition of this book has added content.
Well, it is 2021. But nothing else is really happening. At the University of Michigan, we are still working in a mostly remote fashion and our campus buildings, classrooms, and libraries are holding a tiny fraction of their capacity. But there is hope for the return to normalcy someday soon. One of the ways that we can find that normalcy is by exploring new works covering librarianship and reference that you might want for your collection. Even if it might be a while before you can get your hands-on print, you will want to check out some of these titles that can help you meet the needs of your community.
The ten new entries illustrate significant trends in comic publishing and in the scope of academic interest in graphic novels. An essay on the “2010’s: Technological and Cultural Expansion” notes the adjustment of graphic novel publishing to handheld devices, and the phenomenon of superhero-based big budget movies. Articles on “Stan Lee, the Man Who Popularized American Comics and Graphic Novels” and “Will Eisner, Graphic Novelist,” and “Marvel Comics’ Thor, 1962-1968” add depth to coverage of historical milestones. The other new essays indicate ways in which researchers and students approach comic art scholarship, and how graphic novels are considered as a part of popular culture: “The Art World and Graphic Novels”; “Comics Scholarship”; “The Contribution of the Alternative Comics Movement”; “The Relevancy Revolution”; “Autobiography and Memoir in Graphic Novels”; and “Continuity in Graphic Novel Storytelling.” The field of graphic novel publishing is so dynamic that updates will continue to be necessary. As a question to the publisher, might it be possible to supplement existing content in an online form, without the expense of entire new editions (for both publishers and libraries)?
From Librarianship topics, we review books that cover diversity, volunteer engagement, library programs, and the history of our work. From reference topics, we review books on music and popular culture, including graphic novels, as well as literature and communication sciences. All today, a nice mix of titles that could find a great place in your library or in your network. I am very appreciative of my great crew of reviewers. Participating in this issue’s column are reviewers: Kathleen Baril, Hali Black, Jennifer Matthews, Mary Catherine Moeller, Jennifer Monnin, Michelle Shea and Steven W. Sowards. I will send double thanks to Tiffany Norris and Katherine Swart, for each working up two reviews for this column. If you would like to be a reviewer for Against the Grain, please write me at <cseeman@umich.edu>. If you are a publisher and have a book you would like to see reviewed in a future column, please also write me directly. You can also find out more about the Reader’s Roundup here — https://sites.google.com/view/ squirrelman/atg-readers-roundup. Happy reading and be nutty! — CS
Beaty, Bart H. and Stephen Weiner (eds.). Critical Survey of Graphic Novels: History, Theme & Technique, Second Edition. Ipswich, Mass.: Grey House Publishing/Salem Press, 2019. 978-1-68217-911-6, 512 pages. $195.00. Reviewed by Steven W. Sowards (Associate University Librarian for Collections, Michigan State University Libraries, East Lansing MI) <sowards@msu.edu> This single volume brings together some eighty essays about the historical development of graphic novels — “sequentially imaged narratives” such as comic books and manga — and their role in society, as well as elements of design and production. The emphasis falls on the story of comic art in America. There are summary discussions of graphic novel forms from around the world, but these largely address international forms in a context of influence on trends in the United States.
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All articles from the first edition are carried over without change. As a result, for example, the article on “African American Portrayal” notes the importance of Black Panther as a superhero, but is not in a position to consider the release of the movie “Black Panther” in early 2018 and its importance for the emerging study of Afrofuturism. The contributor list is unchanged from the first edition: 57 academics chiefly from American and Canadian universities, but also representing views from Australia, Belgium, Brazil, France and Sweden. Editor Bart Beaty is a prominent Canadian scholar of comic art. Editor Stephen Weiner is the director of the Maynard (Mass.) Public Library, site of an annual ComicCon. Historical topics include the well-known story of censorship and the Comics Code; underground comix as counterculture alternatives; and the expansion of comic art-related expressions in American life, including conventions for fans, film adaptations, and graphic novels that do more to reflect gender, race and ethnicity. Essays cover numerous genres, including westerns, crime, war, horror, fantasy, science fiction, and animal characters. Essays in the shorter third section about “technique” explain aspects of drawing, scripting, continuity, inking and color, among other matters. Librarians, students and scholars will find this encyclopedia useful as a gateway to investigation of the varieties of graphic novels, thanks to suggested reading lists that accompany every article, and a longer bibliography citing books, articles and web sites. Supporting elements include an index; some 70 illustrations with portraits of writers, and specimen comic pages;
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a glossary of terms dealing especially with design and layout; and a chronology from early times to 2012. There is a very long list of Major Award winners: these pages are repeated in other volumes of the set, which suits a library that owns only one title, but is redundant if more than one title is owned from the series. 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.)
Carson, Jenn. Yoga and Meditation at the Library: A Practical Guide for Librarians. Practical Guide for Librarians (64). Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2019. 9781538116876, 184 pages. $65.00. Reviewed by Hali Black (First Year Experience Librarian, Cook Library, University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, Mississippi) <hali.black@usm.edu> In past decades, libraries have expanded their efforts to address a wide variety of patron needs, rather than solely being providers of information. As libraries continue to take steps to address these needs, new ideas for programming and services have been developed. One growing trend that can be seen in educational institutions and libraries is a focus on patron wellness, including both physical and mental health. Many libraries are now providing support and services to their patrons in a variety of ways and formats to address patron wellness. Despite the rise in popularity of wellness programming, questions concerning cost effectiveness and issues of liability may prevent some libraries from trying such programs. Yoga and Meditation at the Library: A Practical Guide for Librarians serves as a great tool for libraries looking to add yoga and meditation programming to their current services. This book provides an in-depth, practical guide that covers everything from basic information on meditation, yoga, and other wellness activities, to equipment cost, suggested suppliers, advice for locating a certi-
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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fied instructor, information on liability waivers, and much more! The book also provides programming models and alternative ideas for low and no-cost programs and even passive programs which allow patrons to participate at their own leisure rather than a set time and date. The author also covers programming ideas for different age groups, patrons with limited range of movement, as well as other populations. This book is a great resource for programming librarians and non-librarians who are interested in exploring how yoga and meditation can foster health and wellness in their community. Author Jenn Carson is a professional yoga teacher, librarian, and the director of the L.P. Fisher Public Library in Woodstock, New Brunswick, Canada. Carson has over a decade of experience delivering physical literacy and movement-based programming to schools and libraries. In addition to authoring two books centered on physical literacy and yoga programming, Carson is also the creator of the website yogainthelibrary.com and regularly blogs about such programming on the ALA’s Programming Librarian website: programminglibrarian.org. Overall, I found this book to be both a great tool and resource for incorporating health literacy into libraries and other public spaces. As an outreach librarian who’s always seeking to expand and try new programming ideas, this title provided a wealth of information on getting started with yoga and meditation activities in the library. While the book is geared towards public and school libraries, most of the information could be readily applied to other library settings. ATG Reviewer Rating: 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.)
Damico, Jack S., and Martin J. Ball (Eds.). The SAGE Encyclopedia of Human Communication Sciences and Disorders. Los Angeles: SAGE Publications, 2019. 9781483380834, 2,352 pages. $755.00. Reviewed by Katherine Swart (Collection Development Librarian, Hekman Library, Calvin University) <kswart20@calvin.edu> The field of human communication sciences and disorders (HCSD) is quite interdisciplinary, covering topics from anatomy and neurology to linguistics and speech disorders. Sociologists, psychologists, linguists, and speech pathologists each approach the study of HCSD through a different lens. What better way to unite the field than to put forth an encyclopedia? With 21 themes and 634 entries, The SAGE Encyclopedia of Human Communication Sciences and Disorders is hefty but comprehensive in scope. Jack S. Damico (University of Louisiana at Lafayette, USA) and Martin J. Ball (Bangor University, UK) served as editors of this four-volume work, determining the headwords used and authors invited to write. The encyclopedia’s signed entries were each peer reviewed by an editorial board, and the international group of authors (almost 400) primarily come from the United States, United Kingdom, and other English-speaking countries. The intended audience is professionals and students in speech-language pathology, audiology, clinical linguistics, special education, and deaf education. However, the editors claim the book can also be read by laypeople with an interest in these subjects. The editors recognize that the diversity of the HCSD
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discipline means that readers will need a source to consult for concise explanations of key concepts. Indeed, the intended use of the book ranges “from scholarly and scientific investigations to therapeutic and pedagogical activities” (xliii). Readers not wishing to browse alphabetically can use a reader’s guide at the beginning of Volume 1 to view entries organized by theme. Among the 21 subject areas are Anatomy and Physiology, Communication Modalities, Diversity, Hearing and Hearing Disorders, Linguistics, Professional Matters, Swallowing and Dysphagia, and Voice and Resonance. Drill down under the Diversity theme, and you’ll find entries such as bilingual education, code switching and mixing, deaf culture, dialects, multilingualism, sociolinguistics, and stigma. Topics cover the human lifespan, from language disorders in children to gerontological communication disorders. Topics also cover both typical and atypical communication, not just focusing on the disorders. The editors don’t skimp on major topics. For example, the entry on age-related hearing loss is five pages and touches on epidemiology, age-related changes and their consequences, hearing interventions, hearing loss, and screening. Similarly, the entry for aphasia spans types of aphasia, public awareness, recovery, best practices, assessment, and a framework for intervention. Many of the anatomy entries include diagrams of the ear, throat, and brain. Each entry comes with helpful cross references to other entries in the book. The references for further reading are generous and most contain DOIs. The last volume contains an extensive resource guide with recommended books, periodicals, websites, and professional organizations. The encyclopedia does have its limits. For example, it does not cover biographies of scholars in the HCSD field, though it does have a chronology of important dates in the back of Volume 4. And while it does have extensive entries on assessment issues, it does not delve into the many assessment procedures used by speech-language pathologists, simply because there are so many and they vary by language. Those things aside, the encyclopedia is very well done and a worthy addition to any academic library with a speech pathology and audiology program. 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.)
Evans, Robert C., Editor. Critical Insights: Censored & Banned Literature Grey House Publishing, 2019. 9781642650280, 327 pages. $105.00. Reviewed by Mary Catherine Moeller (Assistant Librarian, Kresge Library Services, Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor) <mcmoelle@umich.edu> Censorship has been an issue in society for as long as people have had dissenting or controversial things to say, even if they did not think it was so. Throughout history, authors have written literature that has sparked controversy that has led to the censorship or even banning of their work. Critical Insights: Censored & Banned Literature explores different approaches to the study of censorship as well as specific works of literature that have come under scrutiny to give readers a holistic view of the topic of censorship. Editor Robert C. Evans is the I.B. Young Professor of English and Philosophy at Auburn University at Montgomery (Alabama). His publications focus on topics such as poetry, literary theory, critical theory and women writers. Each chapter in Evans’ book is an essay written by a different author centering around the
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theme of censorship. The aspect that really sets this book apart is that the essays that make up each chapter were not all written in the present day. Some are by modern day authors and others are key essays that were written in the past that give the reader insight into critiques of censorship over time. The “Critical Contexts” section helps readers explore this topic from a variety of viewpoints. In one chapter, Richard Obenauf looks at censorship from a historical perspective in his exploration of the topic in the context of medieval times, while in another part of the same section he takes a more critical approach by focusing on the play Mankind. Kelly Snyder, in her chapter, takes a different approach by reviewing the secondary literature on this topic. Robert Donahoo has even another take as he compares the censorship of works by the same author in order to understand the author’s motivations and how this has affected present day consumption of their material. In my opinion, this chapter is where the book really shines. It is a great way to start things off and is very helpful in creating a solid base for helping readers understand approaches to this topic. The “Critical Readings” section is also really interesting for the reader. Some essays are historical and some are contemporary. Reading through these analyses of censorship from the viewpoints of people during different periods of time gives readers a really great idea of how this issue has evolved over time. The section begins with pieces written in 1908 about explicit fiction and ends with an essay by Robert Evans himself on the 2017 Conejo Valley Dispute, covering a large portion of time. That latter dispute was in the Conejo Valley Unified School District in Southern California and focused on the adoption of Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian as required reading for the high school English curriculum. This book would be great for readers looking to learn more about censorship in general. It introduces the topic from so many different perspectives and does an excellent job of covering a lot of content in an easily digestible fashion. 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.)
Jones, Shannon D., and Murphy, Beverly. Diversity and Inclusion in Libraries: A Call to Action and Strategies for Success. Rowman & Littlefield, 2019. 9781538114391, 192 pages. Paperback $35.00 Reviewed by Jennifer Monnin (Scholarly Engagement Librarian, Health Sciences Library, West Virginia University Libraries, Morgantown) <jennifer.monnin@mail.wvu.edu> Every once in a while you find a book that has everything you need at the current moment. You find yourself underlining text and dog-earing pages. It speaks to you in a way that little else has in that moment of life. Diversity and Inclusion in Libraries: A Call to Action and Strategies for Success is one of those books. Published in 2019, Diversity and Inclusion in Libraries came out shortly before the recent national conversation on race, racism, and anti-racism sparked by the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and countless others. Shannon D. Jones and Beverly Murphy bring together an authoritative group of authors, many of whom speak with inspiring courage and moving vulnerability about their institutions, personal experiences, frustrations, and hopes for the future. While many of the authors are medical librarians, this book is applicable
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across the library profession, with several chapters discussing different types of libraries, library environments, and library school initiatives. Diversity and Inclusion in Libraries is broken into three sections: Part I: Why Diversity and Inclusion Matter; Part II: Equipping the Library Staff; and Part III: Voices from the Field. While it is not a requirement to read this book from cover to cover, Part I gives the reader an overview of diversity and inclusion literature so far, how it relates to libraries and library workers, and provides a baseline for the remainder of the book. Part I is especially useful to those librarians new to the conversation of racism and anti-racism in libraries. Part II goes on to tackle complex topics including leadership, recruitment and retention, cultural competency and sensitivity, and the library in relation to a parent institution. If you are looking for evidence to present to your administration that conversations of race and anti-racism need to be had at your library, Part III provides example after example. All authors in this book privilege us with their personal experience and vulnerability in their respective chapter. We will do well to listen and act on what they have to say. With the subtitle of this book specifically mentioning “action” and “strategies,” it is no surprise that almost every chapter provides the reader with specific, valuable, and actionable ideas that they can apply to their library. Some ideas are more easily applied than others, though all are great steps to take. Implementing the strategies found in this book will take care, attention, and resources, with many of the challenges to implementation addressed in the text. The actions and strategies presented here are numerous, and are applicable across library types and by library workers with varying levels of power in their institutions. Diversity and Inclusion in Libraries is a book that will help many libraries and library workers start and continue anti-racism work in their organizations. It can and should be revisited again and again because of the impactful strategies, practical takeaways, and the personal experiences and expertise found within its pages. ATG Reviewer Rating: 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.)
Kandiuk, Mary. Archives and Special Collections as Sites of Contestation. Sacramento: Library Juice Press, 2020. 9781634000628, 511 pages. $35.00. Reviewed by Tiffany Norris (Library Director, BirminghamSouthern College, Birmingham, AL) <tdnorris@bsc.edu> When issues of social justice arise in libraries, the discussion often centers on public services and physical access to collections in both academic and public instutions and spaces. However, Archives and Special Collections departments can at times be overlooked areas that serve both as reminders of problematic pasts and representations of new ways of moving forward. In this book from Library Juice Press (www.libraryjuicepress.com), 17 chapters from a variety of authors are devoted to examining the role of these departments play in a variety of situations. These include diverse situations such as the community partnership with the homeless; a digitization project relating to Cuban Americans; and two analyses of the limitations and problems of the Library of Congress Classification system. One particularly interesting project discussed in the chapter “Invisible in Plain View” outlined the bigger picture questions of whether libraries
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are charged merely with collecting and facilitating access to knowledge or actually creating it? This is especially true whether there is an objective historical record that must be preserved, and how librarians’ beliefs and choices shape collections that we curate. Another interesting chapter similarly discussed the broader paradigm shift of archivists challenging injustice and developing a social consciousness. Still another looked at the overall representation of women and LGBTQ+ peoples in archives and special collections. The chapters are not all from the 30,000foot view, however. Several of the sections include practical ideas such as how to facilitate student access to archival materials and working with digital exhibits versus print scholarship. The book is full of interesting images and additional resources for those looking to supplement their research and work in these areas. Each chapter had its own approach, making for a reading experience that is as fascinating and delightful as spending an afternoon exploring a special collection. Editor Mary Kandiuk is the Visual Arts, Design & Theatre Librarian for York University Libraries (Toronto, Ontario, Canada) where she is responsible for collections, liaison and information literacy. About half of the authors are affiliated with Canadian colleges and universities, so many of the examples are pulling from a Canadian context, which is not a drawback, just something to keep in perspective while reading. The other authors work with universities and colleges across the United States. Archivists and librarians working closely with special collections, especially in a college or university setting, would find a great deal of value in this book. Whether they’re already engaged in social justice initiatives or they’re only beginning to think through the wider implications of their collections, it would be helpful for them to read other testimonies from those who are working in these areas as well. They will likely find ideas to engage students, collaborate with faculty, and possibly even make some needed changes to their own collections. 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.)
Kroski, Ellyssa (Ed.). 53 Ready-to-Use Kawaii Craft Projects. Chicago: ALA Editions, 2020. 9780838919248, 272 pages. $59.99 (ALA Members: $53.99). Reviewed by Katherine Swart (Collection Development Librarian, Hekman Library, Calvin University) <kswart20@calvin.edu> Adding makerspaces and 3-D printers to libraries has been a fun trend in recent years as librarians are seeking new ways to engage with our users. And, public and school librarians are always on the lookout for new ways to make use of these spaces while drawing in users. Kawaii craft projects are one way to engage kids and teens in library programming. The word kawaii describes the “culture of ‘cuteness’” in Japan (think of Hello Kitty or Pokémon’s Pikachu). Make a “super cute” craft and put a tiny, smiling face on it and you’ve got the idea for what should be a very popular activity. Ellyssa Kroski was the ALA/LITA Library Hi Tech Award winner in 2017 and currently serves as the director of information technology and marketing at the New York Law Institute, as well as being an adjunct faculty member at Drexel University and San Jose State University. An experienced librarian, author, and editor, Kroski tapped librarians from around the country to share their favorite kawaii craft projects for this how-to book.
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The 53 crafts are grouped by theme into eight sections. Part 1, crochet projects, starts with a short introduction to basic crocheting, including URLs for YouTube video tutorials. The crafts are of varying levels of difficulty, ranging from a scarf that looks like sushi when rolled up to mittens designed to look like dinosaur faces. Part 2 describes felties, plushies, and sewing projects. Again, projects range in difficulty and oddness — quilting and needlefelting I’ve heard of, but stuffed animal taxidermy? Part 3 covers quilling, origami, and paper projects. Part 4 provides 3-D printing projects, such as keychains, earrings, and succulent pots. The remaining chapters cover jewelry projects, vinyl cutting and sticker projects, food-themed projects (several involving the Japanese snack Pocky), and miscellaneous craft projects Each chapter begins with a description of the craft and an overview noting the ideal-sized group to work with, number of staff members needed, amount of time the craft should take, and suggested audience (kids, tweens, young adults, and adults). Cost estimates are given, as well as detailed materials lists. The book often gives suggestions for where to find the materials, though sometimes assumes that libraries already have a closet of supplies. Step-by-step project instructions guide readers through preparation for the event and making the actual crafts. Often additional options and variations are noted. Each chapter ends with a list of learning outcomes and recommended next projects. The back of the book includes an extremely detailed index, as well as more recommendations for where to find resources and supplies. For example, there are lists of links where readers can find patterns for quilling, crocheting, vinyl cutting, 3-D printing, and many other crafts featured in the book. The editor also lists links to online tutorials and places to order supplies. Libraries interested in craft programming will certainly find creative ideas in this book. While some of the crafts are more desirable than others, the instructions are clear and comprehensive. There is a good mix of crafts for varying age levels, and the suggested links for patterns and supplies will prove valuable. Although the chapters include learning outcomes, I don’t see any particular attempt to connect with specific educational standards or even reading for that matter. Therefore, I can see this book being more useful for public library programming than for school and academic libraries. ATG Reviewer Rating: 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.)
Sawtelle, Jennifer (ed). Magill’s Literary Annual 2020. Ipswich, MA: Salem Press/Grey House Publishing, 2020. 978-1-64265-433-2, 777 pages. $210.00. Reviewed by Tiffany Norris (Library Director, BirminghamSouthern College, Birmingham, AL) <tdnorris@bsc.edu> Magill’s Literary Annual has been around for almost 70 years and aims to offer “readers incisive reviews of the major literature published during the previous calendar year.” There are 150 reviews of both fiction and non-fiction works, all published in English, but from writers both in the United States and around the world. The reviews are arranged alphabetically by title, and there is also a complete alphabetical list of all the titles and the authors at the beginning of each volume. There is also a brief description of each work in the volume,
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and there are three indexes included at the end: title, author, and category. (Examples of the categories assigned to these works include biography, graphic novels, novels, and religion.) Every essay runs about four pages in length, and it analyzes the focus, intent, and point of view of the work under discussion as well as the overall career or success of the author. A list of additional “Review Sources” is included at the end of each essay, and there is a section with a brief biography of the author or authors of the work. The Magill’s Literary Annual briefly discusses the philosophy behind the selection process: “to cover works that are likely to be of interest to general readers that reflect publishing trends, that add to the careers of authors being taught and researched in literature programs, and that will stand the test of time.” The Annual appears to aim to strike a balance between the academic and popular reading worlds, and it accomplishes this goal. However, the question of exactly how titles are chosen remains. The list of titles seems to be a fair representation of current literature and relatively diverse. However, it would have been even more constructive to spell out the selection process more clearly, especially as it relates to diversity and inclusion, something both librarians and readers are paying more attention to this year. Editor Jennifer Sawtelle is a Product Manager at EBSCO Information Services. There are 21 contributing reviewers listed, but it would also have been useful to include a short biography of the reviewers along with an index of which books they reviewed. Otherwise, the only information we have are their names. That all being said, this is still a useful work, both for public and academic libraries, especially if they have been purchasing it on an ongoing basis. It could be a helpful resource for introductory literature classes, particularly the “Review Sources” section, and for librarians who are responsible for reader recommendations. 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.)
Nye, Valerie. Intellectual Freedom Stories from a Shifting Landscape. Chicago: ALA Editions, 2020. 978-0-8389-4726-5, 186 pages. $49.99. Reviewed by Kathleen Baril (Director, Heterick Memorial Library, Ohio Northern University, Ada, Ohio) <k-baril@onu.edu> When thinking about intellectual freedom in librarianship, most librarians immediately think about challenges to individual books and bans on books. Working as an academic library director, I have been fortunate that during my tenure no one has ever challenged a book in our collection. In addition, during my career as an academic librarian, I have had the freedom to buy books and materials without much thought to potential challenges or bans. But Intellectual Freedom Stories From a Shifting Landscape demonstrates that intellectual freedom is about more than just challenges to books and there are a myriad of issues concerning intellectual freedom that occur in all types of libraries. Editor Valerie Nye, current library director at Santa Fe Community College and co-editor of True Stories of Censorship Battles in America’s Libraries (2012) has compiled a diverse array of intellectual freedom cases from librarians representing public, academic, prison and tribal libraries in the United States, Spain and Sweden. Divided into six parts, each part of
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the book provides several case studies and covers the following topics: library policies, public events, difficult conversations, institutional decisions, patrons challenging materials and cultural sensitivity. The end of each part contains questions which provide the reader a chance to reflect and to connect the topics back to their own library and practice. This book provides numerous examples of intellectual freedom issues including hosting an art exhibition, hosting a peaceful protest, providing library materials to prisoners and providing access to Native American collections for Native American users. In the art exhibition case study, Megan Lotts writes about the objections and controversy that occurred to an art exhibition that she had curated. In the protest case study, Raina Bloom and Carrie Kruse describe the steps they took to host a Black Lives Matter protest in their library. Librarian Erin Boyington describes the various forms of correctional censorship that occur in prisons and the barriers that prisoners face in accessing books and the internet. Looking at Native collections, Lara Aase writes about what happened when she moved materials related to death to a closed rare books area to be in compliance with federal law, but with respect cultural norms of the majority of the library’s users who were members of the Dine Tribe. The examples provided here are only a portion of the cases presented. The depth and breadth of case studies described in this book illustrate the many ways in which librarians must grapple with complex intellectual freedom challenges in all areas of their work. Even in the cases which may be more familiar to readers like book challenges, the case studies provide useful examples of policies and procedures to follow when encountering these intellectual freedom challenges. For this reader, this book was a work-related book that kept my interest from beginning to end and provided some practical advice for future intellectual freedom cases that may arise locally. This book is an important book for current times as threats to intellectual freedom continue to be a concern for all in librarianship and in the wider world. 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.)
Renner, Allison. Library Volunteers: A Practical Guide for Librarians. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. 2019. 978-1538116913, 118 pages. $65 print, $61.50 digital. Reviewed by Michelle Shea (Education Librarian, Texas A&M Central Texas) <m.shea@tamuct.edu> Volunteers are an essential component of library operations, even for libraries that don’t realize it yet. A volunteer program brings new ideas, provides extra hands-on help, inspires community action, and improves outreach efforts for practically all libraries. Many of these factors are influenced by whether the library serves a public, school, or academic audience, but the general principles are widely applicable. Although this handy text spans only about 100 pages, it is a quick read for those wanting to get volunteers on board and a program started. Seven chapters are tightly written to cover any questions that library staff members might ask about volunteer programs. In the first three chapters, Library Volunteers breaks down volunteer types and gives specific advice on running orientations, creating job lists, and managing schedules. Staff and volunteers benefit when duties are distributed fairly and when opportunities beyond shelving are available. Specifically, volunteers who are
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encouraged to assist with programs, posters, and displays can gain experience and offer constructive feedback (p. 20). Chapter four is a valuable read for those who want to start a program, but it may also be helpful for those needing to formalize an existing volunteer process. Examples are given for initial applications, interviewing techniques, handbook content, and training methods, which are supplemented by items in the final section on sample paperwork. While the author can be applauded for thorough coverage of user groups and projects in chapter five, most librarians may choose to skim over that long section. The most useful pieces are the sample time sheets and a visual example for how to schedule volunteers (p. 47). A better way to read is to identify whether you will start with adult, teen, or children volunteers and then look over just the relevant content for either school or summer opportunities. Even though there is a bit of repetition between groups, readers looking for targeted recommendations will appreciate the specificity. Author Allison Renner has experience as a public librarian for teens and as a school librarian for elementary students. Her motivation for writing this book was her own volunteering experience, as well as personal coordination of volunteer services in her library jobs. Professionally, she has written interviews, blog posts, and a teen literacy toolkit for the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA). Renner has also authored book reviews and short fiction pieces for different literary magazines. The credibility of the book is further bolstered by an interview with a volunteer program founder, Dr. Sarah Petschonek, in chapter six. Her advice on dynamic job titles, volunteer growth, and library involvement in community service helps strengthen the backbone of this work. Lastly, since this text is in publisher Rowman & Littlefield’s Practical Guides set, it can be relied upon as a solid professional resource. There are currently over 60 books in this series, ranging in topic from inclusive staffing to digital archiving, so libraries may want to think about their needs and select accordingly. Generally, this practical guide is an informative starting point for librarians tasked with launching or building volunteer programs. Readers may want to take notes or highlight sections related to their library type and potential volunteer group, as this book is a sensible reference for implementing sustainable policies. Public service librarians will benefit from ordering this text for their library’s professional development stacks. 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.)
Sturman, Janet. The SAGE International Encyclopedia of Music and Culture. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publishing, 2019. 9781483317755, 5 vols. $945.00 Reviewed by Jennifer Matthews (Collection Strategy Librarian, Rowan University) <matthewsj@rowan.edu> Music and culture are inexorably intertwined, as music has the power to tell society much about the people who created it. Music can encapsulate an era, help teach young children language, becomes part of our celebrations, and brings people together in ways that we might not otherwise connect. All of this is part of what becomes part of a region’s culture and identity creating ways for individuals to identify as part of a larger whole. Because of this tight connection, studies of music and culture are generally large undertakings.
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The SAGE International Encyclopedia of Music and Culture is a five-volume set that is available both in print and online though this review is focused primarily on the print version. The ambitious work is edited by Janet Sturman, professor of music and associate dean of the Graduate College at the University of Arizona. Sturman regards this encyclopedia as “an overview and introduction to Ethnomusicology” (p. xliii). She described Ethnomusicology as the “study of music in its social and behavioral contexts” (p. xliii). As such, they spend much of the introduction explaining the practice of Ethnomusicology, the perspective presented within the encyclopedia and the various areas covered within its pages. The articles themselves are intended to be “succinct expert perspectives on topics, lines of inquiry, and fundamental knowledge regarding music in the world’s cultures past and present” (p. xlx). What is not found is articles on individuals. Rather, Sturman chose to introduce individuals within the context of the various subjects throughout the encyclopedia in order to keep them intertwined with relevant scholarship. As with other encyclopedias, many cross-references and additional resource lists can be found throughout the volumes. There are several subject categories that are covered throughout the five-volume set. Sturman provides a brief overview of these categories in the introduction and these areas are approached for each entry, as applicable, throughout the encyclopedia. One of the unique features of this encyclopedia is the regional approach to the study of musical cultures, or “beyond the geopolitical.” This allows the various authors to explore
musical trends and connections in area studies past the national borders and make connections that otherwise could be stilted by these same boundaries. There is also the inclusion of two appendices in the final volume, one an additional resource guide and the other an annotated resource guide, for further assistance to researchers in the study of music and culture. Items included in these appendices come from the authors of the various articles as well as a collection of resources from various archives, libraries, professional societies, and journals on this subject. Readers of the encyclopedia should also take note of the vast diversity of authorship contained within the work. Writers, both junior and senior authors, ethnomusicologists, and other specialists come from all countries and ethnicities. However, Sturman indicated that there were some topics that, despite their best efforts, they were unable to secure as diverse an authorship list as planned. Regardless, the efforts in diversity and inclusion are notable and commendable. With the variety of topics, the unique approach to music and culture via the regional/geopolitical avenue, and the diversity of authors, this encyclopedia is certainly worthy of its intention of being an introduction to Ethnomusicology. 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.)
Epistemology — The Scientific Humanism of Fred Dylla [Book Review] Column Editor: T. Scott Plutchak (Librarian, Epistemologist, Birmingham, AL) <splutchak@gmail.com> tscott.typepad.com
Scientific Journeys: A Physicist Explores the Culture, History and Personalities of Science. H. Frederick Dylla Springer Nature, 2020 It’s been a tough time for science and for those of us who consider it the basis for understanding how the world works. Public trust in science seems to be at a low point. Newly minted PhDs struggle to find tenure-track positions and the all-important first big grant seems increasingly elusive. There is no joy in Mudville. One can easily be forgiven for thinking that a career in science these days is one long slog of drudgery and disappointment. So it’s a pleasure to be reminded that the scientific journey is, or at least can be, a passionately human endeavor, full of wonder and delight.
the American Institute of Physics (AIP). But that occupies only the last seven years of his career. During the preceding three decades, as documented in this collection, he was a working physicist, helming a variety of projects at two national labs, and authoring “This some 190 scientific papers. As his story unfolds, powered by his irrecombination of pressible curiosity, it begins to make the delight in perfect sense that he opens with a building things paean to Hildegard, who, along with being renowned for her religious and while using musical works, is generally credited those things as being the founder of the science to explore of natural history in Germany.
Fred Dylla begins the tale of his journeys with an affectionate tribute to Hildegard of Bingen, the 12th century mystic, composer, and founder of three Benedictine convents. Not quite the opening one might expect in a quasi-memoir from a gadget-guy physicist who spent decades experimenting with lasers, researching the physics of nuclear fusion, and building huge particle accelerators before finishing his career as the CEO of the planet’s largest publisher of physics journals.
the edges of Let me get the full disclosures out known physics of the way. Fred Dylla recruited me to the Scholarly Publishing Roundcharacterizes table* in 2009, and in the following Dylla’s career.” years, as friends and colleagues, we worked together to promote its recommendations. I am hardly an objective reviewer. Take that for what it’s worth.
Members of the scholarly communication community might be familiar with that last of his personas — Executive Director of
I label my ATG essays “Epistemology” because I try to use them to explore how it is that we think we know what we know.
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Direct to Open Introducing Direct to Open: A New, Collective Action Open Access Business Model for Scholarly Books from The MIT Press
D2O harnesses collective action to support open access to excellent scholarship. Developed over two years with the generous support of the Arcadia Fund, in close collaboration with the library community, the model will: • Open access to all new MIT Press scholarly monographs and edited collections (~90 titles per year) from 2022 • 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. • Our participation fees take into account library type, size, and collections budget. They are also dynamic. If total participation exceeds our financial goal, the Press will reduce the fees for all participating libraries.
Learn more about D2O at https://direct.mit.edu/books/pages/direct-to-open
Dylla’s answer to that complex question, as revealed in these essays, is expansive, and requires Hildegard’s insights just as much as Rutherford’s, Dresselhaus’s, Grunder’s, and Einstein’s. I suppose most casual readers will recognize only the first and last of those four names. One more good reason to read the book. The essays are short — just two or three pages each — even if the ideas in them are grand. Most were written during his years at AIP as contributions to the staff newsletter. By grouping them thematically, he tells the story of his own passion for science, the people who have mentored him over the decades, and the singular events that took place during his career. Dylla describes his early fascination with lasers and his determination to build one of his own as a precocious kid. He was 13, it was two years after the first demonstration of the ruby laser, and an article in Popular Science “captivated” him. He badgers and cajoles various companies until he is finally able to finagle the loan of a ruby crystal, the heart of his first attempt. With that borrowed crystal, an empty V-8 juice can and sixteen flash bulbs (purchased with his entire weekly allowance) he successfully generates “a bright but tightly contained red spot on the far wall.” What he learns from his first laser improves his design for the next one, and with the one after that he thinks he’s made it to the point where he can start using it to design experiments. This is his template for the next fifty years. He has the mind of a scientist and the hands of an engineer. This combination of the delight in building things while using those things to explore the edges of known physics characterizes Dylla’s career, although he spends relatively little time recounting his own activities. He’s more interested in the stories of the people that he worked with, that he learned from, that he admires. That he’s writing for a generalist audience makes these vignettes easily accessible and engaging to those without a physics background. You don’t need to understand how particle accelerators actually work to get caught up in the excitement with which he recalls Ernest Rutherford’s early explorations. The emphasis is always on the people and the passion. At a time when it seems realistic to be concerned about scientific illiteracy among the public at large, and among politicians in particular, it is a refreshing tonic to keep company with Dylla’s excitement about science and his belief in its importance and its self-policing veracity. He’s a firm believer in the value of basic research. He is keenly aware of the challenges inherent in coaxing million, and even billion, dollar budgets from government funding agencies for projects that have little obvious utility. The payoff may not be immediate, but it appears often enough to justify his faith in the value of the investment. Several times he refers to the invention of the World Wide Web — initially just a tool that particle physicists at CERN could use to share information about their projects more efficiently. The discoveries and inventions that are world-changing often come from the humblest beginnings. In Dylla’s world, science is a profoundly collaborative activity, transcending institutional and national boundaries. Surely the anti-science, go-it-alone approach of the outgoing administration must have grieved him. He heaps praise on Professor Chen Jia’er, one of China’s leading physicists; and, in another essay, Jean Trân Thanh Vân, who he credits with bringing science back to Vietnam after decades of war. These are heroes of the
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finest kind for Dylla, individuals dedicated in equal measure to investing in the work of their own countries while leading efforts toward international cooperation. Readers of Against the Grain will find familiar concerns addressed in the section “Communicating Science.” Here he touches on the 350 year history of the scientific journal along with recent issues around open access and predatory journals. While he is committed to expanding accessibility to the scientific record, he believes strongly in the necessity of professional editing. High quality publishing remains an expensive enterprise. Innovation is essential. Looking at the ever rising mountains of research results that threaten “There’s always to overwhelm our understanding, something more he speculates that the future of to learn, some scientific communication may lean more to machine reading than hunew way to man eyes as text and data mining investigate, and advance to help make sense of it all.
be delighted by,
In the last section, “Art and Scithe mysteries of ence,” Dylla returns to the spirit of Hildegard. Whether through the the universe.” periodic photography exhibits he hosted at AIP, or marveling at the cubism of Picasso and Braque, he is always alert to the sense of wonder that binds his devotion to science and his appreciation of the arts. The tinkerer in him loves discovering that Braque made all his own paints, experimenting “with various additives and finishes to add texture and varying tone…” Responding to an exhibition of artistically rendered photographs of crystals, he’s reminded of being thrilled at what he discovered as a young boy with a magnifying glass and a piece of granite. “Nature still sparkles in my mind.” The excitement that drove 13 year old Dylla’s pursuit of his first laser clearly hasn’t faded. In his retirement he invests the same curiosity and determination to his creation of white-line woodcut prints† that he did to managing huge projects for the Department of Energy. There’s always something more to learn, some new way to investigate, and be delighted by, the mysteries of the universe. Dylla’s scientific journey is a profoundly humanist enterprise. And that ruby crystal he borrowed from the RCA research lab? He still has it. Postscript: Incidentally, there’s quite a bit of von Bingen’s music available on record, with many fascinating interpretations. Vision: The Music of Hildegard von Bingen by Richard Souther is particularly brilliant and utterly timeless.
Notes * Dylla’s essay “Roundtables Help,” included in this volume, describes the background and some of the impact of the Roundtable’s 2010 report. Additional background and analysis can be found in my editorial “Searching for common ground: public access policy and the Scholarly Publishing Roundtable,” from the October 2010 issue of the Journal of the Medical Library Association doi: 10.3163/1536-5050.98.4.002 † For a sampling of Dylla’s prints, go to https://www.freddylla. com/.
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Booklover — Randomly Greedy Column Editor: Donna Jacobs (Retired, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, SC 29425) <donna.jacobs55@gmail.com>
U
sually when I randomly choose a piece of work by a Nobel Laureate to read as part of this bucket list adventure to read one piece of literature from each award winner, I am delighted to find a connection between the literary choice and the time, space or situation around me. The reflection that literature brings to the day-to-day of living is not lost on me and I find it necessary. The book or collection of works is discovered while popping into a bookstore, walking the stacks in the library, or digging into a pile of books at a flea market. Sadly none of these activities are easily or safely available during a pandemic. Albeit, there is a virtual counter activity to each of these methods, but it just isn’t the same. A clinical approach went into the current choice and, for the first time, there is no connection in Elfriede Jelinek’s novel Greed, translation provided by Martin Chalmers, except random. Yet it does fit right into the reason behind why she was awarded the 2004 Nobel Prize in Literature; “for her musical flow of voices and counter-voices in novels and plays that with extraordinary linguistic zeal reveal the absurdity of society’s clichés and their subju“We live in a gating power.”
world where unfortunately the distinction between true and false appears to become increasingly blurred by manipulation of facts, by exploitation of uncritical minds, and by the pollution of the language.” — Arne Tiselius (Awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1948)
Combing her biography to learn a bit about Jelinek revealed that she was born in Austria; received an education in a Roman-Catholic convent (I can relate to this!); her mother would have preferred that she pursued a career in music (She received lessons in piano, organ, guitar, viola and recorder.); she received an organist diploma from the Vienna Conservatory; an anxiety disorder interrupted her studies (The anxiety created the reason why she didn’t attend the Nobel Award ceremony.); and poetry was were she initially put pen to paper creatively.
It is said of many of the Laureates that they are not well known out of their immediate country, language or literary circle and this is also true of Jelinek. However, she is another Laureate whose work has inspired film. The Piano Teacher published in 1983 was the basis of the award winning (Grand Prix at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival) French film of the same name written and directed by Michael Haneke. Maybe this is an example where Jelinek’s intensive music exposure influenced her pen. Of note, when she was awarded the Nobel she felt “despair for becoming a known, a person of the public”; questioned if she had won because she was a woman; and felt that Peter Handke was better deserving of the honor (Handke was the 2019
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recipient and the subject of a recent Booklover column.). Even within Greed one can sense her hesitancy with the pen through the narrator: “What is so wretched about me that I can only be used for writing? But still, I’m well out of it compared to you.” And before this thought comes to a paragraph end, the narrator refers to herself as a “sweet mistress of language.” One description of her work speaks of her major themes of female sexuality, the abuse of this, and the battle of the sexes. Greed delivers on all these topics through its story of the seduction of women by a country policeman that leads to manipulation and a murder that is superimposed over a descriptive narrative of nature, social conditions and interplay. Not quite a page-turner, but Jelinek’s writing delivers an intriguing method of presentation. As I read, I flagged several passages with pink post-it notes. Which one would I share to entice you? It was a difficult choice as each one offers the “verbal dexterity” attributed to Jelinek. Let’s go with the opening of Chapter 8, almost to the end of the story: “Life can’t be buckled on and off like a pair of skis, on which one glides through nature, through this fantastic, sometimes however snow-covered wealth of amino acids and vitamins, which cannot be won by adventure alone. One has to take the amino acids and vitamins as an extra, unlike the plants, which are able to produce these materials themselves. They take the elements which they need, and which have to be available in a form they can use, and off we go. Fresh soil contains all that in sufficient quantities, leached-out soils don’t contain it, they are exhausted, because for too many years the same thing was always expected of them, they would urgently need variety. Aha. This soil is now acidic. That’s not so good. The acid content must be reduced, absolutely, yet the way it’s done is usually wrong. People bend over their soil, which is always too little for them, always too small, yet they’ve usually erred on the side of generosity already and expected too much of it, above all when the soil is in the water. Every day ones gets dirty and cleans oneself, it never goes very deep. The people now gather in the village and talk about a young dead woman. The ceaseless circles in the water which spread out from her seem to have no cause, at least the cause is not known. The young dead woman has already become quite indistinct. The more she’s talked about, the more sensation-seeking and meaty the talk, the more she seems to disappear from the little interests in life among which she existed when she was alive.” If this intrigues you, give Joel Agee’s April 2017 New York Times Book Review of Greed entitled By a Dead Lake a read. It will prepare you for the literary gymnastic adventure you would embark on if you decide to read Greed.
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LEGAL ISSUES Section Editors: Bruce Strauch (The Citadel, Emeritus) <bruce.strauch@gmail.com> Jack Montgomery (Western Kentucky University) <jack.montgomery@wku.edu>
Legally Speaking — The Covid-19 Stimulus Bill and Copyright Column Editor: Anthony Paganelli (Western Kentucky University) <Anthony.Paganelli@wku.edu>
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fter months of arguments and negotiations, the federal government passed the Covid-19 Relief and Government Funding bill on December 27, 2020. As with many bills created and passed in Congress, there are often other bills attached to the major bill. In the over 2,000 pages Covid-19 Relief and Government Funding bill, numerous other bills were attached that included two acts regarding copyright law. The Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement Act of 2020 or also known as the CASE Act and Protecting Lawful Streaming Act were attached to the December 2020 Stimulus Bill. While the CASE Act and the Protecting Lawful Streaming Act was attached to the Stimulus Bill, these copyright legislations have been a work in progress for nearly 10 years. The legislation went through several different hearings and revisions before it passed the House of Representatives and then sent to the Senate committee that was unopposed and then included with the Stimulus Bills. The Protecting Lawful Streaming Act regards the 18 U.S.C. § 2319C Criminal Infringement of a Copyright and the 17 U.S.C. § 506 Criminal Offenses. The criminal offenses and the criminal infringement stated in the U.S. Codes regards the type of criminal charges for the reproduction and distribution of copyrighted works, which a felony charge is the type of criminal charge for violating the criminal offenses. The streaming act addresses the criminal charges for violating streaming copyrighted works, because the change in technology has created a need for more strict laws to prevent the abuse of streaming copyrighted works. The Protecting Lawful Streaming Act places a felony penalty against those that violate the U.S. Code, along with an up to 10 year prison sentence. The act does not pertain to the user of the streaming content, rather the “digital transmission service” that violates the provisions stated in the act (Dunn, 2020). The most interesting act in the Stimulus Bill is the CASE Act, which provides those copyright owners an opportunity to seek damages for copyright infringement that does not exceed a specific financial limit. Prior to this act, copyright owners had to file a claim with the Federal courts, which was extremely time consuming. In addition, several cases of copyright infringement did not seek large monetary damages that would not deem worthy of a file within the Federal courts, therefore the CASE Act of 2020 provides a legal resolution for copyright infringement cases. The CASE Act of 2020 basically offers two outcomes. First, the act provides a system that would encourage against copyright in-
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fringement and avoid extensive legal fees. Secondly, it may provide a platform for copyright owners seeking quick financial resolution. Yet, numerous artist organizations support the CASE Act. Rosenbaum (2020) noted the statement released by the organizations that stated, “We also welcome the inclusion of consensus-driven intellectual property reforms in the omnibus bill. The Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement (CASE) Act and Protect Lawful Streaming Act (PSLA) will strengthen creators’ ability to protect their works against infringement online, and promote a safer, fairer digital environment, which are particularly needed as the arts struggle to survive the pandemic. We look forward to continuing our work to provide greater relief for the American creative community” The CASE Act provides revisions to the Copyright Code U.S.C. 17 most notably the opportunity for copyright owners to avoid filing copyright infringement lawsuits in the federal courts. The act allows the copyright owners to seek actual or statutory damages within a specific financial range. This range stated that no more than $15,000 can be awarded per copyrighted work, $7,500 per work, and not more than $30,000 in a single proceeding. In addition, attorney fees can be recovered if the case was in “bad faith conduct” and this does not exceed $5,000. For those Per Se cases, the amount is $2,500. According to JDSUPRA, “bad faith conduct occurs if it is established that a party pursued a claim, counterclaim, or defense for a harassing or other improper purpose, or without a reasonable basis in law or fact” (2021). The claims board can also require the infringer cease the infringement and to “cease sending a takedown notice” (JDSUPRA, 2021). In order for copyright owners to avoid filing with the federal courts, the act creates a Copyright Claims Board to oversee the infringement suits that is “within the Copyright Office in Washington, D.C.” (Dunn, 2020). The board is comprised of three copyright claims officers appointed by the Library of Congress with four, five, and six years respectively” (JDSUPRA, 2021). To help the board, Copyright Claims attorneys will be hired. In order to file a claim with the Copyright Claims Board, the claim must be “infringement, declaration of non-infringement, misrepresentation in connection with a notification of claimed infringement, and legal or equitable defenses brought in response to such a claim” (JDSUPRA, 2021). Those claims that are statutorily excluded are “claims not identified as permitted, claims previously adjudicated by a court or pending before a
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court unless the court grants a stay permitting the Copyright Claims Board to proceed, claims against Federal or State governmental entities, and claims against person residing outside the United States unless that person initiates the proceeding” (JDSUPRA, 2021). Interestingly, these small claims submitted to the Copyright Claims Board are reviewed in the Board’s office, without the parties involved to be in appearance. In fact, the claims are submitted and reviewed through electronic sources. In addition, hearings and conferences are conducted via online applications unless the claims board cannot access the physical information through electronic documents. JDSUPRA (2021) noted that “The Copyright Claims Board may make arrangement for certain physical or nontestimonial evidence that cannot be presented in this manner.” Of course, the board must abide to Federal regulations regarding Copyright infringement. This act appears to be a fast-track resolution to resolving copyright infringement cases based on the monetary damages sought by the copyright owner. Without a doubt, those low monetary claims will move quickly through the Copyright Claims Board for a resolution, yet some issues may arise throughout this new system that includes copyright holders taking advantage of the system. For instance, in my Against the Grain article “Creative Commons and Infringement” I noted that a photographer allowed the use of his works for free based on the Creative Commons Licensing agreements. However, the photographer filed numerous infringement lawsuits in the Federal Court. These suits filed by the photographer eventually gained him the attention of a judge that labeled him based on his numerous lawsuits as the “Copyright Troll” (Paganelli, 2021). In other words, the CASE Act of 2020 could increase the actions from copyright owners against those utilizing their works in an effort towards monetary gain. Of course, there is opposition from other organizations regarding the legislation being included and passed via the Stimulus Relief Bill. Rosenbaum noted that the Electronic Frontier Foundation was not in favor of the legislation. According to Rosenbaum (2020), “The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s associate director of policy and activism, Katharine Trendacosta called the legislation unconstitutional by putting a court in the Library of Congress, which is part of the legislative branch.” The associate director also mentioned the legislation penalizes creators and provided an outlet for those that infringe on copyrighted works to avoid the court system.
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Rosenbaum (2020) provided further information about the legislation with Copyright Alliance’s CEO Keith Kupferschmid statement, “For far too long, these individual creators have had rights but no means of enforcing them due to the expense and complexity of federal court.” Kupferschmid noted that the CASE Act would provide copyright owners an inexpensive way to seek damages for copyright infringement. The CASE Act has the potential to efficiently streamline copyright infringement cases, yet there is concern about whether the copyright tribunal would effectively and fairly resolve these issues that would be best tried in the Federal court system. In addition, there has to be concern whether the tribunal would send the complicated and unresolved cases to Federal court, which could be significant in the interpretation of the U.S. Copyright Law.
References Copyright.gov. (2020). Congress passes CASE Act of 2020 and law regarding unauthorized streaming services. Issue no. 866. Retrieved from https://www.copyright.gov/newsnet/2020/866. html#:~:text=Late%20last%20night%2C%20Congress%20 passed,the%20Consolidated%20Appropriations%20Act%2C%20 2021. Dunn, Gibson. (2020). Covid-19 Relief Bill creates new small claims copyright board, stronger criminal penalties for illicit streaming. Retrieved from https://www.gibsondunn.com/ wp-content/uploads/2020/12/covid-19-relief-bill-creates-newsmall-claims-copyright-board-stronger-criminal-penalties-forillicit-streaming.pdf. JDSUPRA. (2021). Congress passes CASE Act of 2020 and law regarding unauthorized streaming services. Retrieved from https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/congress-passes-case-act-of2020-and-8502725/. Paganelli, A. (2021). Creative commons and infringement. Against the Grain, 32(6). Rosenbaum. C. (2020). Congress passes CASE Act of Covid-19 relief bill. Billboard. Retrieved from https://www.billboard.com/ articles/business/9503848/congress-case-copyright-reforms-covid19-relief-bill/.
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Questions & Answers — Copyright Column Column Editor: Will Cross (Director, Copyright & Digital Scholarship Center, NC State University Libraries) <wmcross@ncsu.edu> ORCID: 0000-0003-1287-1156 QUESTION: A new librarian asks, “How can I get up to speed on copyright issues in librarianship and publishing?” ANSWER: Given the inconsistent and patchwork nature of copyright education in LIS programs, this is an evergreen topic and I’m happy to share some resources for anyone who is new to copyright issues, or just wants to keep up with the latest developments in the field. There are several well-known standards in the field and a set of exciting new programs that may be worth exploring as well. For many years, the go-to resource for librarians who wanted to learn more about copyright through self-study was Kenneth Crews’ book Copyright for Librarians and Educators: Creative Strategies and Practical Solutions (2020). Written for an educated lay audience, this book introduces the fundamentals of copyright from a library perspective, with special attention paid to the copyright exceptions and common cases most relevant to librarians. Crews’ book — which was recently released as a Fourth Edition — pairs well with other excellent standards such as Carrie Russell’s Complete Copyright for K–12 Librarians and Educators (2012) and the more recent Coaching Copyright (2019) edited by Kevin Smith and Erin Ellis. I have used each of these in my own LIS course on Legal Issues for Librarians and was pleased to contribute a chapter to the Coaching Copyright book. For librarians looking for more formal training, there are several excellent options. Harvard’s well-known CopyrightX offers guided, 12-week online courses, including a course specifically designed for librarians. More information on the program, including an open version of the syllabus, is available at: http://copyx.org/affiliates/ copyrightx-libraries/. Coursera also offers a self-paced massive open online course (MOOC) on Copyright for Educators and Librarians designed by lawyer-librarians from Duke University, Emory University, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. As is the case with many MOOCs, you can audit the course for free or choose to purchase a certificate upon completion that can be added to a CV or online profile. More information and all the materials are available at: https://www.coursera.org/learn/ copyright-for-education. In addition to library copyright-specific courses, many online courses for librarians in adjacent topics offer information on copyright as it relates to the topics covered by those courses. The Creative Commons offers a Certificate for Educators, Academic Librarians, and GLAM that includes some information on copyright fundamentals. As with the MOOC above, all materials are freely available, and a formal certification is offered for a fee at: https://certificates.creativecommons.org/cccertedu/. In 2021 the Association of College and Research Libraries’ (ACRL) popular and long-running Scholarly Communication Roadshow moved online to offer a new Off-Roadshow series that includes coverage of copyright issues. The course and all materials are available at: http://www.ala.org/acrl/conferences/roadshows/offroadshows.
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In addition to these established programs, several new training programs have emerged in the past year or so. In 2020 LYRASIS Learning, in partnership with the Columbia University Libraries’ Copyright Advisory Services, launched a new Virtual Copyright Education Center. The Center will offer a free Copyright 101 course as well as a set of more advanced courses in Limitations and Exceptions, Fair Use, and Copyright in Action. Details are available through this release: https://blogs. cul.columbia.edu/spotlights/2021/02/03/online-copyright-classes/. Another recent program — the Library Copyright Institute — offers community-based copyright training for librarians specifically targeted at institutions with fewer resources and no copyright expert on staff. I have had the pleasure of developing this program with colleagues in North Carolina’s Research Triangle. The first in-person training was offered at no cost with support from the Institute of Museum and Library Services in 2019 and is developing online training to be offered later in 2021. All materials can be found at: http://library. copyright.institute/. These materials represent the tip of the iceberg in terms of copyright training. As with any topic, the best way to learn about copyright is to go to relevant sessions at the conferences you attend, follow librarians and others who discuss copyright on social media, and add your own voice to these discussions. In a related development, I also wanted to highlight the announcement of a new advocacy organization in library copyright. Library Futures is a new group focused on protecting libraries’ right to own and lend digital materials as well as patrons’ rights to access and privacy. The group launched in early 2021 and has offered programming and an advocacy campaign. It looks to be a group to follow for library copyright issues. You can read more about the group’s mission and work here: https://www. libraryfutures.net/. QUESTION: A university press editor asks, “How can I make sure I’m doing everything I need to do to register copyright in the works we publish?” ANSWER: While the United States moved away from requiring any formalities for a work to qualify for copyright protection several decades ago — copyright exists from the moment the work is created — there are many advantages to registering a work with the Copyright Office. Registration creates a public record of the work and of ownership. It also offers advantages for creators who want to be prepared for potential litigation, including eligibility for statutory damages and attorney’s fees, as well as prima facie evidence of ownership if registration occurs within five years of publication. The Copyright Office’s Circular 1 offers an overview of the process and benefits of registration: https://www.copyright.gov/circs/ circ01.pdf#page=5. Registration itself is fairly simple and recent updates to the Copyright Office’s online systems makes the process even easier.
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Works can be registered individually or as a group at: https:// www.copyright.gov/registration/. In January of 2021, the Copyright Office released the latest Compendium of U.S. Copyright Office Practices. The Compendium is a treasure trove for copyright nerds, offering official interpretations of many issues in copyright, particularly related to registration of copyright claims, documentation of copyright ownership, and recordation of copyright documents, including assignments and licenses. It offers detailed and useful guidance on these questions that supplements the information on the basic Copyright Office resources. The Compendium can be found here: https://www.copyright.gov/ comp3/docs/compendium.pdf. QUESTION: An academic author asks, “What are the rules about writing a parody or satire that borrows from an existing work?” ANSWER: On the surface the answer to this question is one of the more straightforward in U.S. copyright law, but things can get a little more confusing around the edges. The leading case on parody, of course, is the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1994 decision in Campbell v. Acuff Rose, holding that the rap group 2 Live Crew’s commercial parody of Roy Orbison’s Oh Pretty Woman was clearly protected by fair use. Since that decision, however, some courts have drawn a line between parody, which comments on a work directly, and satire, which uses an existing work to comment on larger tropes in a genre or on broader cultural themes. Following Campbell, courts have consistently upheld parodic uses in high profile cases such as Leibovitz v. Paramount Pictures Corp. (finding fair use when Paramount used a parody of Leibovitz’s famous photograph of then-pregnant actress Demi Moore to promote the film The Naked Gun 33 1/3) and Suntrust Bank v. Houghton Mifflin Co. (vacating an injunction prohibiting the publisher of Alice Randall’s 2001 parody, The Wind Done Gone, which told the story of Gone with the Wind from the perspective of an enslaved woman). In contrast, courts have often rejected fair use claims where the connection to the work being borrowed is less explicit. For example, in a 1997 case considering a humorous discussion of the OJ Simpson murder trial written in the style of Dr. Seuss’ The Cat in the Hat, the Ninth Circuit affirmed a preliminary injunction prohibiting the publication and distribution of The Cat NOT in the Hat! In that case, the court said that The Cat
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NOT in the Hat! simply took elements of the Dr. Seuss style from multiple Seuss works and applied them in the retelling of the trial. Because it did not offer commentary or critique of Seuss or any of his books directly, the court found that the author’s use was simply “to get attention” or perhaps “to avoid the drudgery in working up something fresh.” In the absence of direct commentary that added new meaning or message, the court held that the use was not a parody, not transformative, and not permitted under fair use. While courts often cite this “parody/satire” distinction, many observers argue that the line between parody and satire can be quite thin. The parodist “Weird Al” Yankovic offers an interesting example through his comedic takes on popular songs. These often do not comment specifically on the original song, but do, in a sense “comment” on the original by replacing sincere (if often banal) sentiment with silly lyrics that deflate the self-serious nature of much popular music. Because Yankovic generally gets permission based on ethical rather than legal concerns, no court has ruled on whether his work would or would not be considered a “real” parody, but these questions seem to turn as much on considerations about artistic expression as they do on legal analysis. The Ninth Circuit recently returned to this question about the scope of parody when considering another humorous book building on a popular Dr. Seuss story. Reviewing a copyright suit over a book called Oh the Places You’ll Boldly Go that mashed up Seuss’ college graduation staple Oh the Places You’ll Go with the TV show Star Trek the Court again found that fair use did not apply. Citing the earlier Cat NOT in the Hat case, the court stated plainly that “Boldly is not a parody” because it does not critique or comment on the original Seuss book. As in the earlier case, the court held that simply “evoking” an existing work is not sufficient for fair use if it does not have critical bearing on the substance or style of the original work. Although both Dr. Seuss cases come from the frequently overruled Ninth Circuit, an author today would be wise to consider the way those cases illustrate the often-fuzzy line between parody and satire. A work that offers clear and explicit commentary and criticism of the work being parodied will almost certainly be protected by fair use as a core example of transformative use. If a work borrows protectable elements for a broader satiric purpose, courts are more likely to reject a fair use claim.
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The Scholarly Publishing Scene — The 2021 PROSE Awards Column Editor: Myer Kutz (President, Myer Kutz Associates, Inc.) <myerkutz@aol.com>
O
ne of my duties as a PROSE Awards judge, in pre-Covid years, was to schlep books that would arrive on the kitchen stoop in large cartons through the length of the house into my office. Many of the books were on scientific topics, of large trim size, with many pages printed on heavy stock. They weighed a ton. Until publishing online took over, multivolume reference works arrived in their own cartons, which went into the garage, where I reviewed them in the cold of Albany, NY Decembers. All this I accomplished under the watchful eye of my lanky wife, who expressed her displeasure about my exertions as each carton was delivered. Ah, the good old days. My PROSE Awards involvement dates back to the late 1980s. The Association of American Publishers (AAP) has run this annual awards program, which became know as the PROSE Awards in the 2000s, since 1976. (PROSE stands for Professional and Scholarly Excellence.) Commercial and not-for-profit professional and scholarly publishers, who are members of AAP or the Association of University Presses (AUPresses), compete. While the majority of entries are books and reference works, there is competition among journals and eproducts. And if I’m not mistaken, there was a time, long, long ago, when publishers submitted loose-leaf products for awards.
Until 2020, the program followed the same schedule and format every year. AAP sent notice of the awards program to publishers in early fall; publishers submitted entry forms, together with a fee for each entry and two copies of the entry; books were sent to judges; the judges convened in person at an AAP site for a two-day meeting in early January; winners were announced in early February — at a luncheon during the annual conference of AAP’s Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division (PSP), held until the last few years. Nowadays there are press releases. For about half of the 2000s, PROSE Awards was presided over with some fanfare by John Jenkins, publisher emeritus of CQ Press, who now runs Law Street Media. He commissioned a documentary film for each Awards Luncheon and exhorted attendees to tweet during the luncheon. Over the past three years, Nigel Fletcher-Jones, a long-time publishing veteran and most recently head of the American University at Cairo Press, has been the genial but more sober chief judge. Back in the late 1980s, when I ran the awards program for a brief period, there were, as I recall, only five judges — four New York area retirees, who’d held senior positions in professional and scholarly publishing, and were now offering their services as consultants, plus a medical doctor. They all were male. They didn’t have to consider eproducts, except for one that dealt with, as I remember, cell motility (submitted by Alan Liss’s company) which I had to explain to the old duffers. In 2020, in contrast, there were twentythree judges, some based in Europe, who had to consider many more entries — five hundred and ninety-five total in 2020, from ninety-three publishers — than had been the case thirty-plus years earlier. There’s still a medical doctor who serves as a judge, and while there are a few retirees who are still active professionally, most
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of the rest of the judges are active in professional and scholarly publishing or in libraries or in academia. You can find information about the judges on the PROSE Awards web site. Their faces and affiliations show me how dramatically the ranks of people prominent and rising in the scholarly and professional publishing world have changed over the past four or five decades (although more diversity is still necessary). Publishers submit entries in a multiplicity of categories delineated mainly by discipline. There are, in addition, categories for reference works, textbooks, books for general audiences, journals and eproducts. The categories are subsumed into five areas: Biological and Life Sciences; Humanities; Physical Sciences & Mathematics; Social Sciences; and Reference Works, which, in 2020, also included textbooks, eproducts, and journals. In the midst of the pandemic, AAP did not ask publishers to send physical copies of books to AAP headquarters, which then would be posted to judges, as in prior years. Instead, publishers were asked to submit two electronic review copies of each entry. More emphasis was placed on the forms which accompany each entry. These forms ask publishers “It was to answer such questions as: What important to makes the entry distinctive and find a way to innovative? What contribution does the entry make to a field or continue the body of knowledge? Why was the PROSE Awards title chosen for publication by your and celebrate press? Typically, publishers add comments by reviewers and distinpublishers guished members of the relevant during this field who’ve read or are acquainted with the book or its author(s), as challenging well as details about the author time.” (although not always the juiciest details; for example, one author had been unfairly slut-shamed by a British tabloid years earlier and, to her great credit, had overcome the ordeal, while another had co-authored a book about Frisbee). We judges had PDFs at our disposal, rather than actual copies of books — although we could selectively order print copies of books where we wanted to see how material was presented on the physical page. Also, unlike in other years, we had to fill out brief scorecards for each title we considered either the winner of a category or one or two runners-up (each judge is solely responsible for one or several categories). The criteria on the scorecards were: Contribution to the field/Originality, on a ten-point scale; Readability/Clarity/Utility, also on a tenpoint scale; Production values, on a five-point scale. Given the criteria, I did want to see actual copies of a few books in my categories, which included mathematics; popular science and mathematics books; and science and mathematics textbooks. (No hard science categories, as had been the case in recent years, so, to my wife’s delight, I would have received fewer heavy tomes had AAP been shipping print copies to judges.) As I mentioned earlier, judges used to meet pre-pandemic in person to discuss the winner in each category and from those winners decide on who would win excellence awards in the five areas listed above. From those five winners, the judges
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would select the R.R. Hawkins Award, named after the Chief of the Science and Technology Division of the New York Public Library from 1942 to 1957. I’ve written about R.R. Hawkins in this magazine before; further details about his professional life are available on the PROSE Awards web site.
important to find a way to continue the PROSE Awards and celebrate publishers during this very challenging time. Our PROSE web partner, Nampora (https://nampora.com/), was responsive and thoughtful in implementation and application, making the restructuring process easy.”
This past January, of course, all PROSE judging was done in Zoom meetings — six sessions over a total of fourteen hours. The process was run by AAP’s Syreeta Swann, who also administers AAP’s statistics and market analysis program and is the contact for AAP’s membership and its board of directors. Sytreeta is ideally positioned for running the PROSE Awards program online. When I asked her about her background and what it took to run the program during the pandemic, she responded by email as follows: “I have a master’s in strategic communication, and I use every skill and tactic I learned to manage the PROSE Awards, from the online tools (website and entry form), to recruiting new judges, to my communications with our judges’ panel and working with our communications team on eMarketing and news releases. Programs are 50% operations and administration, and 50% communication.
Syreeta’s email also included praise for publishers’ willingness to submit entries and accompanying materials electronically and for judges’ willingness to work electronically, as well. She also mentioned that chief judge Nigel Fletcher-Jones’s participation was crucial in the success of the 2021 PROSE Awards program. “[He was] dedicated to supporting all necessary changes to ensure PROSE Awards would continue uninterrupted during the pandemic. He was an outstanding partner and excellent at advocating for the need for a 100% online review process to meet this moment and advising as I built a process that would work for participating publishers and our judges.”
“I’ve worked on a several IT projects in my career [I was the first administrator for the U.S. Copyright Office’s WebEx based collaboration program back in 2013. I secured the contract and developed a training program and format.], and I used those experiences in business analysis, requirements gathering, and systems development and retirement to create a secure, custom, user friendly, online awards management process to ensure AAP’s existing IT tools could be used by our judges .... It was
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You can find the 2021 category and area of excellence winners on the PROSE Awards web site. I’ll let my friend Nigel have the last word, about the winner of the R.R. Hawkins prize: “Simon Martin (University of Pennsylvania) is a master of the material in terms of epigraphy, archaeology, and the theoretical aspects of political organization in the past. Ancient Maya Politics is a major advance in our understanding of the Maya and deserves recognition at the highest level. Cambridge University Press are also to be commended for producing an attractively designed volume that readily draws the reader into the discussion.”
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Don’s Conference Notes Column Editor: Donald T. Hawkins (Freelance Editor and Conference Blogger) <dthawkins@verizon.net> Column Editor’s Note: Because of space limitations, the full text of my conference notes will now be available online in the issues of Against the Grain on Charleston Hub at https://www. charleston-hub.com, and only brief summaries, with links to the full reports, will appear in Against the Grain print issues. — DTH
New Directions in Scholarly Publishing: An SSP Seminar This two-day virtual seminar was sponsored by the Society for Scholarly Publishing (SSP) and attracted about 190 attendees. It featured an opening discussion with 5 of the Scholarly Kitchen “Chefs,” followed by several panel discussions and a keynote address. The chefs were given these questions to answer: • How is the research ecosystem responding to this year of disruptions and upset? • What can libraries, publishers, funders, and others do to support researchers, not just their research? • What do you see as productive positive responses to this year’s changes? A series of panel discussions followed on a variety of subjects: • Navigating to the new normal. A large part of the discussion focused on how the publishing industry can adapt to the needs of people with disabilities. • Supporting researchers, not just their research. The effects of the pandemic, especially on caregiving and the work/life balance. • Preprints and the role of publishers and concerns of researchers. • New directions in tools, visibility, and findability of research. Why our industry lags behind the technology, the future of libraries, identity management, and the role of AI. Magdalena Skipper, Editor-in-Chief of Nature, presented a keynote entitled “Post-Pandemic Scholarly Publishing: Will Nothing Really Be the Same Again?” She mentioned data sharing, the role of AI, and concluded that science publishing will be more diverse in a post-pandemic world. See the full report at https://www.charleston-hub.com/2021/02/ dons-conference-notes-new-directions-in-scholarly-publishingan-ssp-seminar/.
Academic Publishing in Europe (APE) 2021 The 16th APE conference was held virtually on January 12-13, 2021. Its theme was “The New Face of Trust.” In her opening keynote “Open and Autonomous: The Basis for Trust in Science,” Professor Dr. Dorothea Wagner, Chair, German Council of Science and Humanities, said that COVID has had a historic effect on science and has been a game changer. We should not miss the opportunity to learn from it. Trust is like a “transmission belt” connecting science and society. Science is a system of collective knowledge production, with publications being the primary
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medium of its primary impact on society. Trust casts a new light on the autonomy of science; a major issue that must be met is plagiarism, which violates the standards of good scientific practice. The pandemic has demonstrated how strongly devoted most scientists are to improving the public good. The following keynotes and plenary sessions discussed subjects such as: • Reinvention or Return to “Normal”? Scholarly Communications at a Crossroads: Present trends shaping our industry are the road to OA, the expanding research cycle, and the purpose of societies. Financial and budgetary pressures exist throughout the industry, and progress in innovation has largely been stalled. Significant health and emotional issues have arisen. • Opening Doors to Discovery: How Partnerships are Key to Advancing Open Science. The road to open science has been long; its implementations have taken several decades. We need to speed up this process. COVID has been one of the most sought after topics of all time. We must embrace openness. • Financial Transparency and the Cost of Quality. OA has combined access with research; publishing in selective journals remains important. Users want transparency about prices and value. Future publication costs will shift from an APC model to a modified flat fee based on the recipient institution’s publishing history. • Beyond the Paper, the Data, and Then a Bit Further: Capturing More of the Research Workflow. Registered reports accept articles based on the research methods used and then undergo a second peer review to judge whether the conclusions are supported by the data, which produces more reproducible and creditable results and allows null results to be published. Data management is integral for transparent and reproducible research. Data should be FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable). In her second day keynote address, “From Complexity to Transparency: How the OA Switchboard is building a cost-effective collaborative Infrastructure Solution for an OA-driven scholarly Communications Landscape,” Yvonne Campfens, Executive Director, OA Switchboard, noted that the OA Switchboard builds trust by developing challenging topics in the transition to OA. Open is better for science, and OA business models are becoming more diverse. Several challenges are blocking a faster transition to OA: redistribution of money in the system, transparency, and prohibitive costs. The OA Switchboard is a central information exchange hub that builds trust. Other second day sessions included: • New Dotcoms to Watch featuring presentations by representatives from 6 startups in scholarly communication. • Collaborations Built on Trust, which focused on the humanities and social sciences which are rapidly becoming digital by using OA, the future of the monograph, the “Subscribe to Open” model that offers participants discounts on journal subscription prices.
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• Climate Action. Influencing Policy and Tackling Real-World Challenges – How Can Scholarly Collaboration Support Rapid Action? Climate change is a complex array of challenges, and journals and publishers have a duty to advance our understanding of it and make the science heard. • The System Development Goals (SDG) Publishers Compact, which has developed 17 SDGs in cooperation with the United Nations. Publishers can be agents of change through their publications • Balancing the Need for Rapid Sharing With the Need for Rigorous Evaluation — the Role of Preprints and Peer Review: Preprints speed up science and allow faster dissemination, but there is no preprint business model. Springer Nature has created In Review, a server where authors can host preprints while they are being reviewed. Review Commons, developed by a consortium of publishers and reviews, links preprints with reviewed articles after they are published. • The Fourth Paradigm: Data-Intensive Scientific Discovery: More Than 10 Years Later: This session was named after a book published in 2009 by Microsoft Research and covered such topics as recycling the “waste” (data not used in a research project but which may be useful in future research), the Novel MAterials Discovery (NOMAD) repository for unneeded data, and a vision of the library of tomorrow which will contain books, research journals, a connection to the data used in the published articles, and centralized metadata. • STM Research Data Year 2020: A Review: There has been a massive growth in the number of articles linked to data sets. Data science can revolutionize the way science works. Publishers and researchers must work collaboratively. We must change how we evaluate and incentivize researchers and encourage them to share their data. The International Association of Scientific, Technical, and Medical (STM) Publishers has launched the Research Data Year to assist publishers who are supporting researchers in these efforts. • The European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) is moving toward a “web of FAIR research data” and services related to it. It will be a federation of existing services
in a virtual space for science producers and consumers; it will start in Europe and is envisioned to grow into a worldwide organization. However, we must recognize that countries have different structures which must be accommodated. The overriding principle is that EOSC is being developed for researchers and will succeed only if it follows a multi-stakeholder approach. Data must be accessible by people as well as by machines in order to deliver services to scientists. See the full report at https://www.charleston-hub. com/2021/02/dons-conference-notes-academic-publishing-ineurope-ape-2021/.
Owning, Licensing, and Sharing Digital Content: A NISO Virtual Conference The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) held this virtual conference on January 21, 2021 to examine issues affecting digital content. Traditional business models are being strained, so many other considerations must be considered. Speakers addressed sharing digital content and the effect of copyright laws, including fair use; perpetual access to books and digital access to them; consortial approaches to sharing; controlled digital lending and its implementation; and the Internet Archive and digital content. See the full report at https://www.charleston-hub.com/2021/02/ dons-conference-notes-owning-licensing-and-sharing-digital-content-a-niso-virtual-conference/. 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 (http://www.infotoday.com/calendar.asp). 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.
Rumors continued from page 6 and videos! Wow! Is anyone out there interested in getting involved with this project? Please let Leah or Caroline or Katina know! A million thanks to Eleanor for her help and guidance! Email: <leah@charlestonlibraryconference.com>, <caroline@ charlestonlibraryconference.com>, or <kstrauch@comcast.net>.
Incredible People sharing News you’ll want to Hear! The dynamic and vigorous Audrey Powers, a Charleston Conference Director, will be moving to Ithaca, NY in June or July and is retiring on August 6, 2020. Audrey says she has really enjoyed her association with the Charleston Conference, the directors and particularly the leadership. Audrey, we have learned so much from you; thank you for your creative approaches! We are excited that you want to remain involved with the workings of the Charleston Hub! Meanwhile, happy moving and retirement! Our very best, the Charleston Hub team!
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We were excited to learn that Leah’s daughter, the incredibly talented Maddie Hinds, has been accepted to Clemson as a Graphic Communications major, Class of 2025! She wants to design book cover art and do book illustrations, and she’s currently doing an internship with graphic design and marketing. Awesome! Congratulations, Maddie! Was poking around the internet and ran into Toby Green and Coherent Digital’s Policy Commons. We told you about Coherent Digital’s team which includes Toby (Managing Director) Eileen Lawrence (VP, Sales and Chief Inspiration Officer — a perfect title for Eileen!) Stephen Rhind-Tutt (President) and several other great players. Policy Commons is a one-stop community platform for objective, fact-based research from the world’s leading policy experts, nonpartisan think tanks, IGOs and NGOs. So creative and entrepreneurial! continued on page 41
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And They Were There — Reports of Meetings 2020 Charleston Conference Column Editors: Ramune K. Kubilius (Galter Health Sciences Library & Learning Center, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine) <r-kubilius@northwestern.edu> and Sever Bordeianu (Head, Print Resources Section, University Libraries, MSC05 3020, 1 University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131-0001; Phone: 505-277-2645; Fax: 505-277-9813) <sbordeia@unm.edu> Column Editor’s Note: Thanks to the Charleston Conference attendees who agreed to write brief reports that highlight and spotlight their 2020 Charleston Conference experience. Out of necessity, the conference moved from on-site to virtual, and all registrants were given the opportunity to view recordings, to re-visit sessions they saw “live,” or to visit sessions they missed. Without a doubt, with 173 total choices, there were more Charleston Conference sessions than there were volunteer reporters for Against the Grain, so the coverage is just a snapshot. For the 2020 conference, reporters were invited to share what drew them to various themes and sessions, or what they learned, rather than report on individual sessions as they’ve done for “And They Were There” reports in past years when conferences were on-site. There are many ways to learn more about the 2020 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 2020 Charleston Conference Proceedings will be published in 2021, in a new partnership with University of Michigan Press: https://www.press.umich.edu/. — RKK
PRECONFERENCES Note: Attendance at virtual preconferences involved additional registration fees, and the sessions took place prior to the week of the conference.
Pre-Conference Recap: Acquisitions Bootcamp with Rebecca Vargha and Megan Kilb Reported by Cara Mia Calabrese (Miami University) <calabrcm@miamioh.edu>
back and forth to supplement what was being said, helped keep attendees engaged. I enjoyed how this pre-conference touched on both print and electronic acquisitions needs as it is rare we get to only attend one or the other. The presenters also invited vendors to come speak about licensing from their perspective. This was so informative. In my experience I am always explaining how the licensing process works at my library and have never seen behind the curtain. The vendors ran the attendees through their process and discussed what pieces were easily negotiable and which were more of a hard line. They also gave some data about how many license negotiations get escalated beyond the initial representative. I was surprised that for this vendor only 15% had to move beyond the representative and only 1-2% ever made it to Legal Counsel. The vendors mentioned that they keep a document of questions or requests to change license terms along with the outcome of the inquiry. This seemed to be one way they helped representatives resolve general questions and wording changes efficiently. I’ve seen this done on the library side and keeping that record of approved wording and compromises definitely helps staff feel more confident about asking for changes and can move negotiations along. The presenters were open to questions and engaged with the chat, so I didn’t feel the loss of being in-person. On the contrary, I was able to connect with the presenters and my fellow attendees throughout the pre-conference and felt very much a part of the conversation. I know I came away with solid knowledge and a renewed sense of excitement for acquisitions. This pre-conference was well worth my funds and time. https://www.charleston-hub. com/the-charleston-conference/acquisitions-bootcamp/
Pre-Conference Recap: Introduction to Collections Data Analysis with Danica Lewis, Emily Cox, and Hillary Fox Reported by Cara Mia Calabrese (Miami University) <calabrcm@miamioh.edu>
I had been waiting quite some time to attend the Acquisitions Bootcamp and was excited that with the flip to virtual, it was finally possible!
This pre-conference (that took place October 26, 2020) was a last-minute decision for me and I am so glad I decided to attend. This pre-conference was engaging, informative, and fun.
This pre-conference is usually an in-person affair and I can see how beneficial getting to be together and having this in-depth run-through in the same room with everyone would be. That being said, moving the preconference (held October 27, 2020) to the online environment was not a detriment, in my opinion. There was a lot of ground covered during the time allotted (4 hours), but by moving between the main presenters according to their areas of familiarity, while being flexible enough to bounce
The presenters added a baking theme to the pre-conference to keep things light. They used this to start us off with some cake themed ice breakers and also sprinkled baking related check-in questions throughout the day. We quickly moved into building our data foundation. We discussed the ideas of reproducibility and replicability and why they matter not only for research, but in the context of collections’ data, as well. This led into talk about best practices, which of course includes documentation,
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naming, and usage. The use of group exercises helped reinforce the concepts we were learning. The group activity gave us a chance to work through questions together and was well placed to give our minds a change of pace. We then dove back into our usage discussion and all the many forms it can take. I appreciated this deep dive. It covered many of the questions I was getting at my own library. The presenters talked about how to take this data and use visualizations and manipulations to see how individual titles and packages are faring in different contexts. In discussing other metrics or data to consider, transformative deals came up. We had a lively discussion about different options and how these were working for libraries. The end of the session turned to what tools you could use to dig into your data. The presenters gave pros and cons of each tool mentioned as well as how long it took for them to become familiar with it. Including that last piece really gave attendees the sense which tools were attainable goals with our varied skill levels. In true librarian fashion, we ended with a think, pair, share, which gave us time to digest and think forward to potential new projects! I would highly recommend any future pre-conferences or sessions with Danica Lewis, Emily Cox, and Hillary Fox. They took the topic of data which can be dry and confusing and instead left me feeling knowledgeable, and gave me some new things to try with my own data. https://www.charleston-hub. com/the-charleston-conference/introduction-to-collections-data-analysis/
POSTERS What I learned after a stroll through the 2020 Charleston Conference posters Reported by Laura Sill (University of Notre Dame, Hesburgh Libraries) <ljenny@nd.edu> There were 42 posters (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vurah YJIGA9IjA8v94IKfh36QhCFHTQi/view) presented at this year’s conference organized into seven categories. The conference format allowed attendees and presenters dedicated time to review posters and participate in a Live Q&A. Perhaps due to this set up, the Live Q&A sessions were fun and very informative. Attendees brought specific questions or comments to share while nothing prevented them from browsing the posters casually as they moved at will between individual poster discussion break out rooms. The posters as well as optional video clips, acting as “mini talks,” are hosted on the Morrissier platform (https://www.morressier.com/event/ clc2020/5f59fa5a5d192e7da879f354?page=1) and available to conference attendees. From my online stroll, the two predominant themes of the posters were COVID-19 and open access, both themes of which echoed loudly in the closing poll-a-palooza (https:// www.charleston-hub.com/2020/11/closing-session-and-poll-apalooza-2/) as conference buzzwords. Poster presentations in these areas share stories of innovation in the following ways.
• Adaptability in the face of COVID and other local pressures, such as library reorganization, increased demand for campus partnerships, shifting priorities. • Collection shifts with a greater focus on electronic resources and meeting needs of online learning, shifting priorities at the institutional and cross-institutional level, the benefits of assessing print collections and curating open access collections. • Service and business model adjustments as seen through increased collaboration between ILL and acquisitions, for example, or changes that support digital scholarship and media, data and digital literacy, and lessons learned from providing open access to university press titles. Other themes I personally explored are listed below along with the general scope of the posters within each theme: • Acquisitions: for posters about management of textbooks, ebooks, and streaming resources, operational partnerships and workflow design between ILL and acquisitions. • Management, Collaboration: for posters about community of practice, project management, systems migration and process improvement, resource management for government documents, video or electronic resource content. • Metrics, Usage: for posters about custom licenses, COUNTER statistics, holistic collection reviews, and accessibility benchmarking • Instruction, Literacy, Teaching: for posters about curriculum building, approaches to working with specific formats, online learning and the use of digital tools You may be asking, “how did the all-virtual poster session compare to the on-site version?” In my opinion, the fullness of the package, in other words, the presence of an abstract, static poster or slides, video, and Q&A participation, made the topic resonate more deeply. Perhaps the take-away for future presenters is that each means of communication is an opportunity to positively influence the experience. The virtual cannot replace the value of the on-site experience with its actual stroll through the sessions, leisurely review of posters, interesting discussion, and serendipitous meetings with colleagues, all while enjoying late afternoon hors d’oeuvres and a drink. That said, many thanks to this year’s conference planners, who did a wonderful job creating ample buzz around the virtual poster sessions and providing a good framework for learning and making connections. That’s all the reports we have room for in this issue. Watch for more reports from the 2020 Charleston Conference in upcoming print issues of Against the Grain. Presentation materials (PowerPoint slides, handouts, etc.) and recordings of most sessions are available to Conference Attendees on the Charleston Conference event site at https://2020charlestonconference. pathable.co/. Or visit the Charleston Hub at https://www. charleston-hub.com/the-charleston-conference/. — KS
• Communication, including internal use of new tools and external use of social media and marketing techniques or discovery platforms to assist researchers and promote open access.
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Library Analytics: Shaping the Future — Library Web Analytics: Data That Can Empower and Endanger Our Users By Junior Tidal (Web Services & Multimedia Librarian, Associate Professor, New York City College of Technology, CUNY) Column Editors: Tamir Borensztajn (Vice President of SaaS Strategy, EBSCO Information Services) <tborensztajn@ebsco.com> and Kathleen McEvoy (Vice President of Communications, EBSCO Information Services) <kmcevoy@ebsco.com>
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s the COVID-19 pandemic shifts numerous libraries into using virtual services, one of the metrics being used to gauge patron engagement is web analytics. However, as web analytics can reveal data on library users, pulling analytics can be problematic for a number of reasons. Most notably, the collection of user data from web analytics causes concern for user privacy. This column will outline the definition of library web analytics, popular tools to collect analytics, how they are used at the New York City College of Technology’s Ursula C. Schwerin Library, and potential problems that can arise when pulling and examining user data. Web analytics can be defined as data collected from users who visit a website. Merek explains it as “a process through which statistics about website use are gathered and compiled electronically” (2011). This includes such metrics as when (date and time), where (geographical location based on IP address), and what device (desktop vs. mobile devices) users are utilizing when loading the site. The origins of web analytics can be found in web server log files, which typically record data requested by clients to a web server. This eventually evolves into more granular data collection, including specific pages being accessed on the server, the length of time by which users view a page, and exit and entry pages, or referring sources. This information can be useful for library staff to better serve their users. My own institution, the Ursula C. Schwerin Library (known locally as the City Tech Library), uses web analytics to make statistical, evidence-based decisions. Knowing more about users, much like search engines, social media platforms, and ecommerce websites, can help enhance the user experience and support the ease of finding information. For example, we have used web analytics information to determine which web pages to weed out based on users’ interactions, discover the specific browsers most compatible with our library website, trending blog themes, to determine which social media platforms to use for marketing campaigns, how to best serve mobile web pages to users for particular devices, optimal channels to market electronic resources, and much more. For several years, Google Analytics (GA) was the primary way to collect user data. GA is a Google-based service which allows websites, including library websites, to insert JavaScript code into a site that is then used to collect information about users and display them within the GA website. Metrics collected include first-party cookies (cookies that were generated by GA and saved locally), advertising identifiers, IP address and statistics on user interactions that utilize Google applications. These are then parsed and displayed into graphs that display user activity, which can be cross-referenced by other metrics, such as the date, user characteristics, device usage, and other factors. For example, a GA view can be used to compare the usage of a group of iPhone users with those visiting the site on
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a Windows machine over the course of a year. This granular breakdown of activity can then be used to target specific users. GA also allows the creation of “conversions,” user interactions, like clicking a particular link, downloading a file, or subscribing to a newsletter via email to name a few, that can then be attached to a monetary value. As an alternative, the City Tech Library utilizes Matomo to collect user data and help inform marketing and web-based decisions. Matomo is an open source, freely available web analytics tool. It provides many metrics that GA collects — the main difference is that data collected by Matomo is controlled and collected by the library. It is not shared with Google or other third parties. Libraries concerned with patron privacy may find Matomo useful for that reason alone. In a similar vein, libraries may also reconsider using Google-based applications and hardware as it can be assumed that aspects of the analytics data and metadata may be collected and used by third parties. The downside of Matomo is the technical know-how necessary to administer the software is quite advanced. However, since it is open source, Matomo has a rich community that provides support for administrators. It can be argued that the reliance of GA by so many library websites is caused by a lack of funding to support in-house web analytics. Libraries were greatly underfunded prior to the pandemic and currently suffer from austerity budgets. Web librarians and server administrators rely on third-party created tools, be it a proprietary content-management system such as LibGuides, an open-source platform such as WordPress, or freely available tools such as GA. Even open-source software such as Matomo comes with the price of installing, maintaining and customizing the software for particular server setups. This may be problematic for some institutions without funding to skilled labor, making GA the preferred platform. Similar to web analytics, social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and many more, allow users to sign up for free, where their activities generate statistics. These analytics are equally valuable to libraries that rely on social media to connect with patrons. However, the patterns of users’ data, behaviors and actions conducted on these sites can be monetized by the social channel for customized advertisements and marketing. This is a massive amount of data that users willingly produce for free. User interactions such as likes, friend networks, and other related metadata is also subject to being collected and sold. Web analytics data collected from hundreds to thousands of users can lead to the creation of predictive models of users’ behaviors. This is a powerful aspect of web and social platform analytics that can benefit search engines and social media services. This wide berth of data collection can also be used to uphold structures of social inequality through algorithms based on
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aggregated user data. The intentional and unintentional biases of developers are inherited by these systems. This is evident in the short life of Tay, a chat bot developed by Microsoft which “learned” to be racist based on social media (Neff and Nagy, 2016), as well as the racial and gender discrimination present in face recognition software (Buolamwini, 2017). How can libraries then resist the collection, classification and selling of user data? One concrete step is to end the use of Google Analytics and switch to open-source software like Matomo, or alternatively, stop collecting user data altogether. Libraries can help protect patron privacy by determining why web analytics information should be collected in the first place, negotiating contracts with library vendors, educating patrons and using institutional and organizational processes to protect user privacy. When asking themselves why they are collecting web analytics, it’s important to remember that some libraries may rely on web interactions to justify grants and budgets which are factored into annual reports. Web analytics can be used to make design and interface decisions concerning a library website; however, it only provides a small facet of users who are reduced to web statistics. Instead, more useful data collection may be done through usability task-testing. This is a process where librarians, developers, or designers can collect direct feedback from users based on how they accomplish tasks on the library website. Metadata and web analytics only paint a partial picture of web visitors. Usability testing provides a more detailed account directly from the perspective of the user, rather than data collected from their interactions. Reducing users to web statistics can skew search algorithms, which poses a risk to incorporate bias when analyzing web data. Usability testing can open new avenues, incorporating accessible, compassionate, universal and diversity into design. Libraries and library consortia can negotiate vendor contracts to protect their users’ privacy when considering analytics information collected by online services such as databases and integrated library systems. Stroshane of the North Dakota State Library outlines vendor negotiations and provides a checklist on the American Libraries Choose Privacy Blog (2017). One of his points of advisement is to express concern to vendors about potential patron privacy violations when utilizing third-party web analytics platforms. Librarians should ask vendors if this information can be barred when developing their contracts. Additionally, librarians can inform their patrons about the practices of web analytics and algorithms. The San Jose Public Library makes their vendor privacy agreements openly available so patrons can see how their data is used (https://www.sjpl.org/ vendor-privacy-policies). Providing this information is one step forward in educating library patrons. Libraries are inherently educational institutions, and providing users with strong digital literacy skills is synonymous with reading literacy skills in today’s social information age. It’s important to note that smartphones provide a wealth of data, including where users connect, what kind of device they are using at what time of day, and, even in some cases, user health through the use of wearable technology. This makes lower-income users particularly vulnerable for data tracking, as the Pew Internet Research Center states that “[In] 2019, 26 percent of adults living in households earning less than $30,000 a year are “smartphone-dependent” internet users.” (Andersen and Kumar, 2019) This data can be sold to the state, as ICE has used data against vulnerable library populations such as immigrants (Lamdan, 2019). If libraries are leery of these practices, they can resist the use of analytics not only from their own practices, but from
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their institutions. The use of digital surveillance by educational institutions has been enabled because of the recent COVID-19 pandemic and the evolution of remote learning and digital resources. There is a reliance on software that factors in student behavior, which is then processed to determine student success. For example, the Virginia Commonwealth University, prior to the pandemic, conducted a pilot with Ram Attend, tracking student attendance when they connected to the institution’s WiFi (King, 2019). Not only is this practice problematic in ensuring user privacy, as it tracks the geolocation of students and associated metadata, it adds another metric within a larger algorithmic framework that may or may not determine student success. One way to mitigate these issues is through institutional governance. The work of CUNY librarian and University Faculty Senate member Roxanne Shirazi and others have highlighted the monetization and use of learning data and, in response, have pushed through faculty governance a resolution to protect student data from such practices.(2020). The use of web analytics in libraries is helpful in understanding user patterns and preferences making virtual services more accessible, but it shouldn’t come at the cost of free access to user data. When used inappropriately, data can be leveraged for nefarious purposes such as upholding structures of white supremacy, invading user privacy, and dehumanizing patrons into statistics. As a solution, libraries should really question why they are collecting analytics data, how they can inform users of the purposes of data collection by vendors, and the best way to protect the privacy of their patrons.
Resources Academic Affairs (2020). Affirming the Privacy of Learning Data at CUNY. CUNY UFS. Retrieved from https://www1.cuny. edu/sites/cunyufs/2020/09/10/affirming-the-privacy-of-learningdata-at-cuny. Andersen, Kumar (2019, May 7). Digital divide persists even as lower-income Americans make gains in tech adoption. Pew Internet Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/facttank/2019/05/07/digital-divide-persists-even-as-lower-incomeamericans-make-gains-in-tech-adoption/ Buolamwini, J., & Gebru, T. (2018, January). Gender shades: Intersectional accuracy disparities in commercial gender classification. In Conference on fairness, accountability and transparency (pp. 77-91). King, B. (2019, Nov. 4). VCU to begin pilot program tracking students’ attendance through Wi-Fi. WTVR. Retrieved from https://www.wtvr.com/2019/11/14/vcu-to-begin-pilot-programtracking-students-attendance-through-wi-fi/. Lamdan, S. (2019). Librarianship at the crossroads of ICE surveillance. In the Library with the Lead Pipe. Retrieved from http:// www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2019/ice-surveillance/. Merek, K. (2011). Web Analytics Overview. ALA TechSource, 5. Retrieved from https://journals.ala.org/index.php/ltr/article/ view/4233/4827. Neff, G., & Nagy, P. (2016). Automation, algorithms, and politics talking tobBots: Symbiotic agency and the case of Tay. International Journal of Communication, 10, 17. Stroshane, E. (2017). Negotiating contracts with vendors for privacy. American Library Association Choose Privacy Everyday. Retrieved from https://chooseprivacyeveryday.org/negotiating-contracts-for-privacy/.
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Let’s Get Technical — A Case (Western Reserve University) Study of COVID-19 e-Resource Usage and Free Access By Shelby Stuart (Electronic Resources Librarian, Case Western Reserve University) <sxs1827@case.edu> and Stephanie Church (Acquisitions & Metadata Services Librarian, Case Western Reserve University) <stephanie.church@case.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>
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ike many universities across the United States, Case Western Reserve University’s (CWRU) Kelvin Smith Library (KSL) in Cleveland, Ohio quickly pivoted to a fully remote teaching and learning environment in the spring of 2020. The sudden move to remote education brought with it unprecedented challenges and new questions about the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on access to electronic resources and their usage. The timeline of events may look familiar to academic librarians. In mid-March, Cuyahoga County announced its first confirmed COVID-19 cases. Shortly thereafter, all campus libraries at CWRU closed to patrons. Meanwhile, library staff began working remotely and instructors scrambled to offer virtual instruction to their students. Complicating the situation further, the university administration announced the move to remote education during Spring Break, meaning that some students became stranded off-campus without their academic materials, many students rushed to leave on-campus housing and return to their homes, and a small number of international and out-of-state students remained on campus. As publishers became aware of the intense challenges facing academic libraries and their patrons, they began offering free access to previously-paywalled academic content en masse. Those offers flooded into CWRU librarians’ inboxes throughout the months of March and April. Suddenly our workflows on the Acquisitions & Metadata Services team were taken over by notifying content selector librarians about specific offers and working to quickly activate those for which there was interest, on top of fulfilling rush e-resource and streaming video requests deemed critical to complete the semester. Early on, our colleagues expressed concern that promoting temporary free access could set up unrealistic expectations for users once the free access periods ended and the resources were no longer available — especially in light of such uncertainty about the future of the library’s content budget in the wake of the pandemic. Librarians balanced those concerns with their desire to provide extended e-resource access to an entirely virtual campus when deciding which free access resources to promote to users. For those access offers that content selectors deemed useful to the campus community, we used a combination of methods to make them discoverable. KSL’s liaison librarians maintained a LibGuide containing a list of free access resources, along with a brief description and the free access expiration date. The electronic resources librarian added databases and dedicated e-journal and e-book collections to the A-Z Databases List and tagged each of those databases with a “Temporary COVID-19 Access” tag. Where possible, she added those collections to the discovery layer while also maintaining a spreadsheet documenting each collection added and the date when it would expire and need to be removed from the discovery layer.
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In the midst of this flurry of activity, we began to wonder how the remote education environment would impact the overall usage of e-resources. We strategized the best way to accurately represent the data and trends and we concluded that a year over year analysis could be enlightening. Starting in April, we began tracking and analyzing monthly usage of CWRU’s traditionally high-cost and high-use e-resources, such as JSTOR, EBSCO e-books, IEEE Xplore, and Taylor & Francis journals. The majority of our publishers’ free access offers expired in June. In July, we began contacting publishers to request usage data for the free access offers and to estimate the cost of resources our patrons had accessed. Perhaps the biggest obstacle we faced in e-resource assessment was the fact that many of our vendors had switched from the COUNTER Release 4 reporting standard to “Early on, our COUNTER Release 5. As a result colleagues of the COUNTER transition, usage metrics were counted differently beexpressed tween 2019 and 2020, making a year concern that over year comparison ambiguous.
promoting
Nonetheless, we used what we temporary free had at our disposal and discovered there was a 42% decline in unique access could set item requests for e-journals and up unrealistic a 56% decline for e-books from expectations March to May 2020 when compared to March to May 2019. Knowing for users once that the COUNTER usage data was the free access an insufficient way to represent periods ended.” usage across years, we decided to brainstorm additional ways to analyze usage. One data point that had not changed between the COUNTER Releases was the number of unique items accessed. When we pivoted to comparing like data, we discovered a 1% increase in overall unique items accessed for both e-journals and e-books, with a 25% increase in unique e-book titles accessed despite the 56% decrease in COUNTER-reported usage. Another data point that remained constant between the two years was turnaway count. Given that our researchers had access to more unique titles in 2020 thanks to COVID-19 expanded access to content, we hypothesized that this might be reflected by decreased turnaway counts. When comparing year over year data, we found that there was a 7% decrease in overall access denials. Again, e-books displayed the most significant drop with a 27% decrease in turnaways from March to May 2020 when compared to the same time period in 2019. The month of April 2020 had the strongest showing of usage when compared to April 2019. Usage data revealed that while there was a 43% decrease in COUNTER usage for e-books and
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e-journals, we accessed 4% more unique titles and had a 26% decrease in unique turnaways. Our data analysis also uncovered publisher-specific successes during the COVID-19 expanded access time period. For example, expanded access to JSTOR content resulted in a 29% increase in unique titles accessed and a 70% decrease in overall turnaways reported from March to May 2020 when compared to the previous year. This was a direct result of JSTOR opening access to e-books, e-journals, and primary sources to subscribing institutions. Another publisher’s success on our campus was access to Cambridge University Press’ Companions, Histories, Textbooks, and early access to a consortial EBA that resulted in a 600% increase in e-book usage during the spring 2020 semester. Streaming video saw a sharp increase in both faculty requests and usage during remote learning. A year over year analysis of Kanopy indicated that video plays were up 151% between March to May 2020 as compared to 2019 and our users viewed over 138,000 minutes, which was a 207% increase over the previous year. Thanks to Kanopy’s free access and discounted license fee, our library saved nearly $10,000 during the three month period. When it came to gathering usage data, one challenge we faced was that some publishers (Project MUSE and Wiley are two examples) made their resources openly
available with no authentication required during spring 2020. The lack of authentication meant that the publisher was unable to identify which users were coming from which institution. While this was great for promoting open access, it had the unintended side effect of rendering us unable to pull usage data specific to our user population. That could have resulted in undercounted usage of some publishers’ resources during the free access period. In addition, our ability to gather and share full usage data with library stakeholders was slowed by the fact that most vendors report usage on a monthly basis, meaning we were unable to pull, for instance, April usage data for a particular resource until after April ended. By completing a comparative analysis of the number of unique titles accessed during the spring 2020 semester, we were able to demonstrate a clear increase in usage during remote learning. Coupled with a significant decrease in turnaway data, we determined that CWRU researchers were able to access more scholarly content due in large part to the temporary expanded publisher access. Moving forward, it will be easier to examine year over year usage numbers now that we are more than a year from the COUNTER5 transition and can compare like usage metrics. We will continue to watch how trends evolve during dual course delivery and have found value in measuring the number of unique titles accessed and denied by our researchers.
Rumors continued from page 35 Personable and dedicated to digital preservation, Alicia Wise has joined CLOCKSS as Executive Director. Alicia has served as director of Information Power, senior vice president global strategic networks at Elsevier and several other positions. As Mimi Calter, Deputy University Librarian at Stanford, and co-chair of the CLOCKSS Board of Directors says, “Alicia has a wealth of industry experience to bring to the role, and has of course worked with CLOCKSS before, as both a board member, and as co-chair of the organization. We look forward to working with Alicia to drive CLOCKSS through the next phases of its development.” For eighteen years, the Stanford University LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe) Program has supported the digital preservation needs of a diverse and growing community of institutions worldwide. CLOCKSS is a not-for-profit joint venture between the world’s leading academic publishers and research libraries whose mission is to build a sustainable, international, and geographically distributed dark archive with which to ensure the long-term survival of Web-based scholarly publications for the benefit of the greater global research community. Visit: https:// www.clockss.org and https://library.stanford.edu/. Robyn A. (Wittenberg) Dudley is now Project Administrator and Board Member at Augusta Jewish Museum Inc. in Augusta, Georgia. Robyn is now retired and wants to make a difference by using her outreach and customer service skills plus her newfound interest in Jewish heritage and history. Enter her encore career is as a Social Justice advocate and volunteer with various non profits including the Augusta Jewish Museum, an effort to save the oldest synagogue in Georgia and creating a CSRA Regional Center of Learning and Understanding for All.
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Matthew Ismail sends word that his son’s high school graduation was just moved from June to late May. Taking new directions, Matthew is working on the final project for his yoga teacher training and he also has an upcoming meeting for his yoga nidra meditation teacher certification. Do y’all by any chance remember Matthew’s book Wallis Budge: Magic and Mummies in London and Cairo? The book is both a biography of Sir E. A. Wallis Budge (1857- 1934), who was Keeper of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities in the British Museum from 1894 to 1924, and a cultural history of the era in which Ancient Egypt and Assyria were being rediscovered in Europe. Budge’s career was entwined with the great issues of his day, including British imperialism and European relations with the Ottoman Empire, and the book also covers his conflicts and tensions with the British colonial government of Egypt and the Egyptian Antiquities Service (which was run by the French). Budge is often remembered today through the eyes of his enemies, and this book seeks to present a more balanced view of a man whose life is a fascinating entrée into the social and cultural history of his day. I enjoyed it! And moving right along, Matthew just got his first COVID shot! Have you gotten yours? Janet Belanger Morrow, Head, Resource & Discovery Services at Northeastern University is celebrating 27 years at Northeastern University. Janet says it’s hard to believe it’s been that long. Ain’t it the truth! Congrats, Janet!
Announcements You Need to Know About. Sabinet offers online journals originating from or pertaining to Africa. The Sabinet African Journals service has continued on page 60
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Optimizing Library Services — The Complexity, Benefits, and Obstacles of Open Access (OA): How Librarians Are Becoming Leaders of the OA Movement By Ms. Brittany Haynes (Sales and Marketing Coordinator, IGI Global) <bhaynes@igi-global.com> Column Editors: Ms. Caroline Campbell (Assistant Director of Marketing and Sales, IGI Global) <ccampbell@igi-global.com> and Mr. Nick Newcomer (Senior Director of Marketing and Sales, IGI Global) <nnewcomer@igi-global.com>
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ecently, OA has been at the forefront of news headlines. This includes Elsevier converting 160 of their journals to OA, IGI Global offering 32 full Gold OA journals, Springer Nature announcing a new OA pilot program, and Wiley acquiring leading OA publisher, Hindawi (Durrani, 2021; IGI Global, 2021; Seltzer, 2020; Business Wire, 2021). These publishers are increasing their OA offerings as there has been a continuous interest and an unprecedented demand for “open” content, based on mandates like Plan S (CoAlition S). Placing even more pressure on this demand is the current COVID-19 pandemic, which has increased budgetary restrictions and constraints for institutions and their libraries. It has also increased the demand for digital resources in online-only and hybrid learning and research environments. “Access to digital resources, especially OA journal content, is critical during times such as these when researchers and institutions all over the world are connecting remotely,” stated Dr. Mehdi Khosrow-Pour, D.B.A, President and CEO of IGI Global. “Now, more than ever, there is a need for the timeliest and highest quality research.”
Benefits and Hesitations in the OA Movement The benefits of OA content appear to be immense, as it increases the accessibility of research and makes it immediately available to the entire scientific research community. For libraries, this can serve as a way to freely acquire needed research for their institution, and for researchers, it can increase the citation impact and sharing of their research, as it removes copyright barriers. However, while the OA movement is more openly accepted in Europe and is continuing to make ground in the U.S., there are concerns that persist about OA. In the absence of subscription revenue, many larger publishers charge high APC fees to turn a profit. These publishers are not being transparent about the costs to produce the work. This can restrict the ability of and discourage researchers from submitting under OA, which consequently reduces the amount of overall OA content for the entire academic community. Additionally, as researchers are turning their attention more to publishers that are solely focused on OA, predatory OA publishers are able to prey on researchers, with a focus on the “pay-to-publish” model and profitability. They do not ensure the dissemination of quality, vetted research content, as predatory publishers typically charge the APC without requiring the content to undergo a rigorous peer review process (Tenant, et al. 2016).
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Beyond these concerns that are largely faced by researchers, libraries are also confronted with challenges. Part of the hesitation with OA is understanding the intricate mechanisms and terminology that surround “Open Science,” “Open Data,” “Open Access,” “Open Research,” and other related terms that feature a lack of standardization of labeling content and access. This confusion is only exacerbated for librarians, as they must utilize multiple systems to integrate OA content in their library, and there is a lack of consistency with OA metadata, information, and communication. Additionally, there are concerns over the quality of OA research (due to predatory publishing) and publishers “double-dipping” through requesting high article processing charges (APCs) while charging institutional libraries for OA content. Some librarians even fear the OA movement could minimize their role with the ease of availability of OA research, causing a lower demand for library services such as acquiring and organizing content as well as providing assistance with their patrons’ research needs. Thus, implementing OA resources into their discovery services and platforms continues to be a challenge for libraries. For instance, highly used tools for making OA content discoverable are only operable at the title level and lack standardization. This makes it difficult to notate OA versus traditional articles in hybrid OA resources. The previously mentioned need for metadata cleanup was also reported to be one of the major implementation issues librarians face with OA, especially when labelling OA content as “free” or “OA” or “Public Access” and a streamlined system of communicating in the OA “supply chain” is a top need for librarians (Bullock, et al. 2015). A higher level of openness and communication between publishers and librarians, as well as a larger conversation across the board for publishers about standardizing OA metadata and labels, would assist with clearing up the confusion that many libraries are left to sift through. Regarding the challenge that OA may pose to librarian roles, there are other opportunities that arise for librarians with the expansion of OA. At a Charleston Conference, Ms. Julia Gelfand, from California State University, Irvine, USA, stated that even with the surge in OA content, librarians will maintain their key role in developing and maintaining repositories to increase the discoverability of OA content for their patrons. This is especially true as new technologies continue to emerge and patrons require the assistance of their librarians to navigate repositories and discovery systems for OA content. Ms. Gelfand also mentioned this can continue to create new
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opportunities and positions for librarians in the wake of OA as publishing consultants, scholarly communications librarians, and more (IGI Global, 2018). Librarians also serve a key role as they can determine the credibility of OA content by serving as a line of defense when perusing this content, including it in their institution’s discovery services, and ensuring their patrons have access to quality content. They can also help mitigate predatory publishing practices, as when institutions acquire content and share it with their patrons, they are endorsing that it is coming from a quality publisher. Although these challenges arise for libraries and their patrons, it is important to note libraries play one of the most important roles in the OA movement. They are crucial in strengthening collaboration and communication between libraries and publishers to work in diminishing these obstacles (i.e., confusion over APCs, the quality of OA content, standardization in metadata, etc.) for implementation and utilization and ensure the OA movement can be fully embraced. With this need for publisher-librarian collaboration to create a more sustainable OA movement, “Read and Publish” and “Publish and Read” models have developed, with libraries becoming a driving force behind funding OA, alongside the researchers and publishing entities.1
Sustainable OA (“Read and Publish” and “Publish and Read”) Models “Read and Publish” and “Publish and Read” models have been around for several years; however, now is the time where this type of model is being re-highlighted due to COVID-19. Libraries are pulling out of big deals, renegotiating with larger publishers as they face inevitable budgetary constraints, and working to integrate “read and publish” models into their contracts. This is to ensure that they are able to maximize their budget and publishers are not double-dipping (where publishers receive payment from the APCs but then also garner payment from the same institutions the APCs come from for the content). Although COVID-19 has increased the need for OA content and enabled librarians to have a platform to renegotiate, it is also decreasing OA funding, as institutions’, departments’, and libraries’ budgets continue to be hit hard by the economic impacts of the pandemic. With this, from a publisher’s perspective, we are also seeing an insurgence of small and medium-sized publishers offering more flexible read and publish models, which offset the costs of APCs for institutions that invest in content. Some examples of publishers that offer APC waivers include: • Springer Nature in conjunction with Projekt DEAL, which offers a 20% APC discount for eligible authors in Springer Nature OA journals
acquisitions models, indicating medium-sized publishers are offering more flexible and attractive offers to maximize budgets and benefits, as opposed to some of the big deals associated with larger publishers. Libraries are seeing this as a great value proposition and are actively seeking to add OA waivers to increase the value of their deals when acquiring collections. This looks to publishers to provide more flexible offers to continue the OA movement, but this can also be used as a negotiation tool for larger publishers to make true change in how they propel the OA movement forward and how libraries are able to acquire this content. Popular pilot models for flexible and sustainable OA offerings being implemented by publishers so far include: • Up to 100% OA APC waivers • Discounts on APCs when individuals at an institution publish OA content • Waiving OA APCs for low- or middle- income countries completely • Support of larger funding bodies to cover APC costs • And more. Through these sustainable models, libraries and publishers can collaborate to relieve the burden of initiating publishing OA research content. Yet another model that can ease the collective burden of a transition to OA is the Subscribe to Open model, utilized by publishers such as Annual Reviews, Berghahn Journals, EDP Sciences (Hinchliffe, 2020), and IGI Global (to name a few), which came about by rethinking Read and Publish and Publish and Read models.
Subscribe to Open Models Subscribe to Open models serve as a way for librarians to lead the charge in OA, by assisting the movement as well as publishers during a transition period. Annual Reviews’ pilot model, for example, utilizes “existing library subscription payments for gated access journals to be leveraged and then retained to convert and sustain the journals as OA” which will provide enough financial support for the transitioning journals. They also offer a 5% discount on subscriptions under Subscribe to Open as an incentive. If subscribers are unwilling to contribute to the overall movement, the project itself will not succeed and the journals will have to revert to traditional subscription models to sustain them as they rely on full participation for the OA movement to succeed (Michael, 2019). The other aforementioned publishers partaking in the Subscribe to Open model are also looking to it as an innovative solution to offset the costs of publishing and maintain the transition to OA to: • Ensure continued access to the OA content. • Support a rigorous peer review process.
• IGI Global, which provides 100% OA APC waivers in IGI Global hybrid and full Gold OA journals when an institution invests in any of InfoSci-Databases (e-book and e-journal collections) as well as 50-100% OA APC waivers automatically for low- and middle-income countries
• Provide a sustainable, long-term solution to cover the costs of publishing, producing, hosting, and integrating the journals into the necessary platforms without having to request high APCs from authors.
• MDPI, which waives anywhere from 15%-100% of its APCs, depending on the subject area and length of establishment of a journal.
• Support OA research mandates, such as cOAlition S (Plan S).
With read and publish, institutions are able to see where the costs of their investment offset OA APCs and have flexible
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• Empower institutions to support OA publishing independently of funding support.
• Assist researchers and institutions in developing countries to obtain access to content normally locked behind a paywall.
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With the Subscribe to Open model, libraries are able to optimize the services they offer to not only their patrons by organizing and ensuring optimal access to OA content, but also by allowing publishers to be creative with their options and ensure OA remains sustainable for all. Librarians are able to lead the charge by not only supporting options like Subscribe to Open, but by vetting the OA research being produced with those they support in this manner. This ensures credible research is shared openly and endorsed by institutions.
Conclusion Based on this, librarians and publishers working together to collaborate on sustainable OA models and push the movement forward is of the utmost importance. It not only supports the continuous increase in demand for accessible digital resources, but ensures quality OA research is being added to the overall body of knowledge in the age of COVID-19. As part of the larger academic community, these groups will need to continually collaborate and push for these sustainable OA models to change the movement. This will ensure larger publishers will have to provide more affordable OA APC and hybrid options as well as keep parties accountable for ensuring proper vetting and rigorous review processes are maintained for OA content. Only by having an honest conversation about OA and their costs, as well as troubleshooting the difficulties of implementation of OA resources, will the OA movement be able to truly do what it was meant to do, by making digital research content more freely accessible to all.
Resources Brainard, J. (2021). A new mandate highlights costs, benefits of making all scientific articles free to read. Retrieved from www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/01/new-mandate-highlights-costs-benefits-making-all-scientific-articles-free-read. Business Wire. (2021). Wiley Announces the Acquisition of Hindawi. Retrieved from www.businesswire.com/news/ home/20210105005201/en/Wiley-Announces-the-Acquisition-of-Hindawi. Bulock, C., Hosburgh, N., Mann, S. (2015). OA in the Library Collection: The Challenges of Identifying and Maintaining Open Access Resources, The Serials Librarian, 68:1-4, 79-86, DOI: 10.1080/0361526X.2015.1023690 Durrani, Jamie. (2021). Elsevier Flips 160 Journals to Open Access. Retrieved from www.chemistryworld.com/news/elsevierflips-160-journals-to-open-access/4013038.article. Enago Academy. N.d. “Publish and Read” Gains Momentum: Projekt DEAL Signs Agreement With Springer Nature. Retrieved from www.enago.com/academy/projekt-deal-signs-agreementwith-springer-nature/ Hinchliffe, L. J. (2020). Subscribe to Open: A Mutual Assurance Approach to Open Access. Retrieved from https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2020/03/09/subscribetoopen/. Hinchliffe, L. J. (2019). Transformative Agreements: A Primer. Retrieved from https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2019/04/23/ transformative-agreements/. IGI Global. (2021). IGI Global Converts 30 Journals to Full Gold Open Access (OA). Retrieved from www.igi-global.com/ newsroom/archive/igi-global-converts-journals-full/4687/. IGI Global. (2018, November 21). Sustainable Open Access Approaches: Benefits for Researchers, Librarians, and Publishers [Video]. https://youtu.be/QJxrB3divyk
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Michael, A. (2019). Subscribe to Open: Annual Reviews’ Take on Open Access. Retrieved from https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet. org/2019/04/02/subscribe-to-open/. Projekt DEAL (2020). Springer Nature Contract. Retrieved from https://www.projekt-deal.de/springer-nature-contract/ Seltzer, R. (2020). Open Access Comes to Selective Journal. Retrieved from www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/11/24/nature-add-open-access-publishing-option-2021. Tennant, J. P., Waldner, F., Jacques, D. C., Masuzzo, P., Collister, L. B., & Hartgerink, C. H. J. (2016). The academic, economic and societal impacts of Open Access: an evidence-based review. F1000Research, 5, 632. http://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.8460.3
Recommended Readings If you are interested in discussing these topics or collaborating on new initiatives and OA models, contact IGI Global at <eresources@igi-global.com>. Additionally, view a sample of IGI Global’s recently converted full Gold OA journals as well as our hybrid OA content, which can be integrated into your discovery systems and shared with your patrons accordingly. Chen, Z., Jiao, J., & Hu, K. (2021). Formative Assessment as an Online Instruction Intervention: Student Engagement, Outcomes, and Perceptions. International Journal of Distance Education Technologies (IJDET), 19(1), 50-65. doi:10.4018/IJDET.20210101.oa1 Doyle, A., Hynes, W., & Purcell, S. M. (2021). Building Resilient, Smart Communities in a Post-COVID Era: Insights From Ireland. International Journal of E-Planning Research (IJEPR), 10(2), 18-26. doi:10.4018/IJEPR.20210401.oa2 Inyang, O. G. (2022). Mentoring: A Tool for Successful Collaboration for Library and Information Science (LIS) Educators. International Journal of Library and Information Services (IJLIS), 11(1), 1-12. doi:10.4018/IJLIS.20220101.oa1 Scassa, T. (2021). COVID-19 Contact Tracing: From Local to Global and Back Again. International Journal of E-Planning Research (IJEPR), 10(2), 45-58. doi:10.4018/IJEPR.20210401.oa4 Tikam, M. (2018). Connection, Collaboration, and Community: Creative Commons. International Journal of Library and Information Services (IJLIS), 7(1), 30-43. doi:10.4018/ IJLIS.2018010103 Zhao, H., Ahn, M. J., & Manoharan, A. P. (2021). E-Government, Corruption Reduction and the Role of Culture: A Study Based on Panel Data of 57 Countries. International Journal of E-Planning Research (IJEPR), 10(3), 86-104. doi:10.4018/ IJEPR.20210701.oa6 Interested in viewing and integrating all IGI Global OA content into your discovery services, including our 32 full Gold OA journals? Visit https://bit.ly/3aDx8YC.
Endnotes 1. We are defining a “Read and Publish” model as “an agreement in which the publisher receives payment for reading and payment for publishing bundled into a single contract” and “Publish and Read” model as including payment to the publishing entity solely for the APCs of OA content (Hinchliffe, 2019).
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The Digital Toolbox: Case Studies, Best Practices and Data for the Academic Librarian — How Consumer Behavior is Driving Change During the Pandemic. Column Editor: Steve Rosato (Director and Business Development Executive, OverDrive Professional, Cleveland, OH 44125) <srosato@overdrive.com>
Lessons From 5 Leading Companies for Academic Libraries to Add Value for Their Students and Their Institutions Higher education institutions are slashing budgets, evaluating every line item as schools navigate a fiscal crisis. They are cutting sports programs, eliminating majors, and implementing layoffs as starting points. It is estimated COVID-19 has cost colleges and universities $120 billion in revenue. Prestigious schools like Harvard University, that typically are not as impacted by economic downturns, have seen a significant financial impact, facing a revenue decrease of 3 percent and a $10 million operating deficit for the fiscal year ending June 2020. Freshman enrollment is down 16 percent while undergraduate enrollment is lagging 4 percent, driving tuition revenue down across higher education. In a fiscal crisis, it is critical to demonstrate value to stakeholders to maintain budget and resources. Looking across markets where companies have thrived while peers’ face setbacks offers helpful insights. Consumer behavior is driving change across all economic sectors. Exploring these trends and applying them to academic libraries provides examples of innovation that can be utilized to lead through challenging times as opposed to merely surviving. I use the example of market value for Proctor & Gamble, Disney, Nike, Netflix and Apple. These are brands and products that have outperformed their peers by leaning into the changes in consumer behavior and are positioned to dictate terms when other companies are just hanging on. Their collective market value has exploded by 92 percent since January 2019, far outpacing the Dow Jones industrial average which grew 25 percent. This demonstrates that value is being driven by players that are in tune with consumer behavior. How can academic libraries do the same? Here are six consumer trends in reaction to the pandemic with parallels that academic libraries can leverage after COVID has subsided: 1. Less in-store shopping: Curbside pick-up, online deliveries, deliveries from restaurants that never offered it before. • How many academic libraries are offering curbside delivery of physical materials? The once unthinkable is now the only way to provide access. The ability to make more of your collection available digitally and under different lending models is critical to be able to meet student needs. 2. Increased remote working: Increase use of desktops in lieu of mobile, flexible work schedules, increased demand for remote tech/products like multiple screens at home offices. • Think about how you staff departments and the resources employees need to be able to perform remotely. Consider the need to follow COVID protocols, keeping staff safe while still serving students
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and faculty. The option to work remotely with no notice will also improve services and provide greater flexibility in the future to keep your library operating during snowstorms, hurricanes and any other potential disruptions. 3. Virtual interactions: From virtual doctors’ appointments to virtual job interviews and virtual company holiday parties, things we never imagined doing on camera are now the norm. • Faculty and students now expect access to both materials and staff virtually, as classes are increasingly offered remotely or hybrid by combining in-person and remote. Promote the platforms your team uses (Zoom, MS Teams, Google), add cameras and microphones to staff equipment, establish schedules for availability, provide time for 1:1 virtual meetings with staff. 4. Contactless payments: While your library may not charge for materials or services, this lesson also can be relevant. This is not just expected, it is mandated to reduce the spread of COVID-19. • Having less physical interaction not only serves your students, making digital options part of your PPE considerations also protects your staff. Invest time and money into developing and expanding digital collections.
“Exploring consumer behavior trends and applying them to academic libraries provides examples of innovation that can be utilized to lead through challenging times as opposed to merely surviving.“
5. Storytelling marketing: Particularly for consumer brands, interacting with their audience in places like Snapchat and Instagram give companies direct communication and authenticity. • You have a greater opportunity than ever to engage your campus and be the source of news and information for a variety of groups. Promote events, call out new additions to your collection, link to articles, add staff bios and recommendation, post community information — the options for the story your library tells is unlimited. 6. Increased online media usage: People are spending more time online or on their devices: the average time spent consuming media has risen to 13 hours and 35 minutes per day. • People are not only more comfortable with digital formats, they expect to get the content they need digitally so they can access on their terms and at
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their convenience. This also provides the opportunity for your library to solicit feedback from patrons and faculty and allows you to be more transparent in posting policies. You can target and tag specific communities — this is where students interact. Be part of their ecosystem. Capitalizing on consumer trends has made companies like Nike, Apple and Netflix market leaders that are thriving in an uncertain time. Applying these lessons to your libraries will add value for students and your institution when libraries can open doors and welcome students back in person.
Sources https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2020/06/05/academic-libraries-will-change-significant-ways-result-pandemic-opinion https://blog.techsoup.org/posts/8-library-marketing-trendsfor-2021-you-cant-ignore https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/26/us/colleges-coronavirus-budget-cuts.html https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2020/10/harvard-lower-revenues-financial-loss-in-pandemic https://www.bbvaopenmind.com/en/articles/imagining-thefuture-leading-the-way-in-a-changing-world-consumer-trendsfor-the-future/ http://www.themarketingsage.com/7-post-pandemic-consumertrends-to-watch/
Table of Contents for Against the Grain Online Articles on Charleston Hub — www.charleston-hub.com Don’s Conference Notes New Directions in Scholarly Publishing: An SSP Seminar by Donald T. Hawkins — see https://www. charleston-hub.com/2021/02/dons-conference-notes-newdirections-in-scholarly-publishing-an-ssp-seminar/ Academic Publishing in Europe (APE) 2021 by Donald T. Hawkins — see https://www.charleston-hub.com/2021/02/ dons-conference-notes-academic-publishing-in-europeape-2021/ Owning, Licensing, and Sharing Digital Content: A NISO Virtual Conference by Donald T. Hawkins — see https://www.charleston-hub.com/2021/02/dons-conferencenotes-owning-licensing-and-sharing-digital-content-a-nisovirtual-conference/
Not Easier Yet The Rumors Blog, Guest Post by Bob Nardini — see https://www.charleston-hub.com/2021/02/not-easier-yet-therumors-blog-guest-post/
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Scite.AI Update Part 1: Creating New Opportunities by Nancy Herther — see https://www.charleston-hub.com/2021/02/scite-aiupdate-part-1-creating-new-opportunities-an-atg-original/ Part 2: An Insider’s Look Inside Scite by Nancy Herther — see https://www.charleston-hub.com/2021/02/scite-aiupdate-part-2-an-insiders-look-inside-scite-an-atg-original/
Wikipedia@20 Part 1: Global Information Network Celebrated A Major Anniversary by Nancy Herther — see https://www. charleston-hub.com/2021/01/wikipedia20-part-1-globalinformation-network-celebrated-a-major-anniversary/ Part 2: The Role of Academics by Nancy Herther — see https://www.charleston-hub.com/2021/01/wikipedia20-part2-the-role-of-academics/ Part 3: Librarians Explain their Involvement by Nancy Herther — see https://www.charleston-hub.com/2021/01/ wikipedia20-part-3-librarians-explain-their-involvement/ Part 4: Wikipedia for Altmetric Research by Nancy Herther — see https://www.charleston-hub.com/2021/01/ wikipedia20-part-4-wikipedia-for-altmetric-research/
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Biz of Digital — Metadata Remediation of Legacy Digital Collections Efficient Large-Scale Metadata Clean-Up with a Sleek Workflow and a Handy Tool By Marina Georgieva (Visiting Digital Collections Librarian, UNLV Libraries Digital Collections, University of Nevada, Las Vegas; Phone: 702-895-2310) <marinik@abv.bg> ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2134-6719 Column Editor: Michelle Flinchbaugh (Acquisitions and Digital Scholarship Services Librarian, Albin O. Kuhn Library & Gallery, University of Maryland Baltimore County; Phone: 410-455-6754; Fax: 410-455-1598) <flinchba@umbc.edu>
Abstract Metadata remediation of digital collections is inevitable. At some point, each repository faces the need to clean-up digital collections legacy metadata so that it conforms to new standards. Typically, this need emerges either as a response to an updated metadata application profile, or as preparation for migration to a new digital asset management system (DAMS). Normalized metadata is critical for an improved search experience and easy discovery of digital objects.
The metadata clean-up also involved active data manipulation in Excel using advanced functions that support largescale remediation, such as filtering, trimming, concatenating, removing duplicates, indexing and matching of data sets, and normalizing dates.
Workflow The whole remediation process is outlined in the workflow below. This article will focus only on certain segments.
This case study focuses on the University of Nevada, Las Vegas’ (UNLV) experience of cleaning up and preparing non-MARC metadata for migration to a new DAMS. The author shares her experience on cleaning up over 50,000 records in Excel for slightly over six months. Excel is a convenient, Figure 1. Segmented metadata remediation workflow easily accessible tool with hundreds of free tutorials online. The Mapping Legacy Fields to a Uniform remediation work utilizes various functions and formulas that are used to manipulate and optimize the metadata consistency. Metadata Application Profile
Overview UNLV Digital collections use a Dublin Core schema. The legacy collections employ a Dublin Core element set enriched with custom developed local fields unique for each collection. Fields and controlled vocabularies vary according to collections’ peculiarities. To achieve consistency, upon a decision to migrate to a new DAMS, the metadata librarian developed a uniform metadata application profile for all digitized collections (photographic, manuscripts and oral histories). The new metadata profile omitted many custom legacy fields. It is more simplified, featuring the standard Dublin Core element set with fewer local fields intended to capture technical information or archival peculiarities. To support smooth migration to a new DAMS, all collections (legacy and new) must conform to the updated metadata profile. This decision required the clean-up of all legacy collections as part of the migration preparation. The remediation process included review and rework of obsolete legacy fields and mapping their values to the new uniform metadata fields. The process featured extensive work with authority terms, in particular mapping terms from one vocabulary to another. Terms from Thesaurus of Graphic Materials (TGM) and Art & Architecture Thesaurus (AAT) were mapped to their Faceted Application of Subject Terminology (FAST) equivalent, and Thesaurus of Geographic Names (TGN) terms were replaced by GeoNames terms.
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The obsolete legacy collection fields were metadata rich, especially those created for grants. Examples of metadata rich collections are: Menus: The Art of Dining http://digital.library. unlv.edu/collections/menus, Neon Survey http://d.library.unlv.edu/ digital/collection/neo and Nevada Test Site Oral History Project http://digital.library.unlv.edu/ntsohp/. Newer collections, such as Culinary Workers Union http://d.library.unlv.edu/digital/collection/cwu, embraced the large-scale approach with minimal metadata, but still contained collection-specific fields. As we developed approaches to map obsolete fields to new fields, we strived to preserve the research effort. This often resulted in keeping valuable information and fitting it in new appropriate fields. The description field was a placeholder for non-normalized legacy values such as full sentences or notes. Names of people, organizations and places were mapped to controlled vocabulary fields like contributor, collaborator, interviewer, geographic map (for locations) after proper normalization.
Preserving All Metadata A good example of a collection that preserved all collection specific metadata is the Neon Survey project. Most legacy values were mapped to description. We appended the obsolete field label in front of the metadata string before transferring to description. Data that could be normalized (typically names) was placed in the creator or contributor fields.
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Figure 2. View of a lookup table for LCSH terms mapped to FAST
The Blend Approach The collection Menus: The Art of Dining used the blend approach. It preserved valuable collection specific data and omitted irrelevant fields. The table outlines all collection specific fields on the left and lists preserved and omitted fields on the right. Preserved metadata was mapped to description, creator, contributor, subject and staff note depending on whether the values could be normalized or were free text strings.
While verifying scope notes and mapping, we compiled a list of terms. This is what we refer to as look up tables. See Figure 2. Terms in different collections often repeat, so we automated the process by using the look up tables to search for existing terms. The Excel function index and match was used to replace the old terms with the new counterparts. It automatically populated the new fields with the appropriate FAST term from the look up tables. We sorted all empty results to identify the missing terms which later we manually looked up on the authority website id.gov to add to our table. The final step of mapping was a second round of de-duping redundant terms generated after concatenating terms from multiple legacy fields.
Working with Name Authorities
Omitting Legacy Metadata A collection that omitted all legacy collection specific metadata is the Nevada Test Site Oral History Project. The disposed metadata was unstructured, redundant, or of lesser value.
Encountering names of people or businesses in legacy fields added an extra step to the workflow. It featured extracting and compiling all non-normalized names along with the people’s dates and places of birth. The clean-up process included normalizing the names and recording them in our systems TemaTres and ContentDm. TemaTres is a linked data ready system that displays relations among all agents, such as family and employment relationships, occurrence in digital collections, cataloger’s notes, etc. The system promotes consistency of metadata, especially for similar names, as it gives biographical details about the agent and disambiguates among multiple name variants. All new TemaTres entries were mapped to the appropriate fields, such as interviewer, narrator, creator, contributor, or subject. Nevada Test Site Oral History Project had hundreds of legacy non-normalized names. After compiling a list of them, we found the authority forms in Library of Congress Name Authority File (LCNAF) (https://id.loc.gov/authorities/names.html) or in Virtual International Authority File (VIAF) (http://viaf.org).
This collection was remediated with bare minimum metadata for several reasons: (1) long textual strings that could not be normalized; (2) specific technology and nuclear scientific terms not listed in any controlled vocabulary and (3) project specific fields that did not provide value outside the project context.
Mapping Subject Terms from Obsolete Controlled Vocabularies to id.gov Mapping controlled terms from one vocabulary to another involved several steps: manual searching for terms, verifying scope notes, selecting equivalent terms, and recording them in a table. We followed the same process for all controlled vocabularies (TGN, LCSH, AAT, TGM) as we mapped them to FAST or GeoNames.
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For locally prominent people that did not have authority forms, their names were normalized to conform to the format last name, first name, YYYY birth – YYYY death before we recorded it in our system. After the clean-up, all newly normalized names were compiled in separate lookup tables for automated replacing of obsolete legacy terms.
Normalizing Metadata in Excel Using Functions and Formulas Cleaning up metadata fields in Excel is an efficient process supported by numerous free tutorials. Remediation is a multistep task to manipulate the data and it often involves applying various functions and formulas in a specific sequence. Typically, our metadata remediation workflow followed this pattern: 1. trimming all extra spaces that may surround the values (leading and trailing spaces, occasionally double-spacing between words)
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2. getting rid of the end delimiter (comma, semi-colon, period) 3. data evaluation to determine the clean-up approach and the combination of formulas and functions 4. two types of clean-up approaches depending on the metadata fields: a. controlled vocabulary fields (subject, creator, contributor, interviewer, location, date, material type, etc.) b. free-text fields (description, title, citation) Details on cleaning Controlled vocabulary fields and Free text fields are available in the online Appendix at http://bit.ly/ Metadata-Remediation, section Normalizing metadata in Excel using functions and formulas. For more information on metadata fields and commonly used formulas for remediation refer to the online Appendix at http://bit.ly/Metadata-Remediation, section Table with frequently remediated fields and most used formulas.
Most Challenging and Time-Consuming Metadata Fields Subject Subject is highly utilized for searching, so it requires consistent metadata across all digital collections. Subject remediation took much time as it merged all obsolete topical metadata terms from various vocabularies (TGM, TGN, AAT, LCSH) in a new subject field. After merging, it required extensive manual work to map legacy terms to FAST equivalent. This additional workflow step included intellectual labor of verifying scope of legacy terms and matching to the appropriate FAST counterpart. To keep the work organized, we compiled tables with terms we already verified and mapped. Later these tables helped for automated mapping of repeating subject terms.
Description Typically, description came with pre-filled information, but also it served as a storage place for valuable data from obsolete fields. The most challenging and time-consuming part of the process was to decide what legacy metadata to preserve, whether it brings value to researchers, and how to present it in a structured way in a free text field.
Tips and Tricks for Efficient and Smooth Remediation Remediation requires attention on many levels. These tricks helped me stay efficient and deliver high quality output.
Sorting Appropriate sorting is critical as each subset of data becomes easier to manipulate. The filtered data is more manageable, allows patterns to emerge, outlines discrepancies and facilitates data manipulation. Efficient work with large sets of data (some outnumbering 40,000 lines) is achieved by sorting on several criteria in multiple fields at the same time. See Figure 3.
Color-coding Large data sets take weeks of work and it is easy to get lost and perform redundant actions. To avoid repetitiveness and ramp up efficiency, a color-coding system simplifies the progress tracking. Just a glimpse on the color-coded data displays what is completed, what is in progress and what is pending, as well as if anything needs revision. Defining a color legend keeps the color-coding consistent among all spreadsheets. Upon remediation and before sharing the clean data with the migration team, all color-coding is removed.
Version control Version control keeps all cleaned fields safe and gives an option to revert one step in case something goes wrong. Although Excel has built-in version control, we use another approach: to save versions of our files upon remediating each field. For example, after finishing the subject field, we save a version of the file. Then, we make a copy of it and on the new copy, we continue working on the description field. In case the data gets mismatched or the formulas get messy, we can rework the description field from scratch. This keeps the previously finished fields safe as the older file versions are not affected. Each version controlled file comes with a tab that contains a log. The log outlines all modifications and provides completion dates. See Figure 4.
Worksheets Worksheets are helpful for remediating fields rich in controlled terms. They provide a clean workplace for massive subsets of data often featuring tens of thousands of terms. The obsolete data is extracted from the main file and copied in a separate worksheet where remediation takes place. Upon completion, the clean data is moved back to the main file where it replaces the legacy data. Working in separate worksheets allows more streamlined manipulation of data and easier progress tracking. It also guarantees if anything goes wrong, the legacy data will not be affected.
Compound objects Compound objects are digital objects with two or more pages, which we refer to as “children.” Their remediation can be challenging. In the spreadsheet each child (page) is represented as a new line. If children have item-level metadata, sorting and filtering of data must be handled carefully. During the process of sorting/filtering, if children are left behind or sent to the wrong parent, this may result in shifting metadata to wrong lines. In other words, children will get wrong metadata or will remain empty. Best practice to avoid metadata shifting is to apply A-Z sorting. Typically, we sort by digital IDs as our compound objects have consistent file numbering convention: all children inherit the parent digital ID and get unique numerical extensions. When we sort by digital IDs, the children are always properly arranged.
Figure 3. Excerpt from Neon Survey collection. These 2 lines are sorted out of 1,390 rows with data by applying several criteria in five fields. (1) Column B is sorted A-Z (alphabetical arrangement), (2) Column A is sorted to exclude all cells that are blank (no data), (3) Column K is sorted to show only lines that contain “2002,” (4) Column Q is filtered to show only lines that contain the word “hotel,” (5) Column T is filtered to exclude all lines that contain the word “text.”
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Library of frequently used formulas Keeping a document with frequently used formulas saves time and boosts remediation efficiency. All formulas are supplemented by brief descriptions when to use them and how they work. This best practice promotes consistent metadata clean-up across all collections. Additionally, it helps with analysis and decision-making on choosing the sequence of actions for each data set. See Figure 5.
Conclusion Although it may seem overwhelming to work with large sets of data, it is vital to remember that data can be further divided into multiple data subsets for easier and more manageable manipulation. Developing a segmented workflow is critical for smooth, efficient, and successful operations. Segmentation ensures predictable data manipulation, structured remediation, and effortless progress tracking that results in successful project completion. Segmentation is complemented by version control for a more robust workflow and allows unforeseen modifications even after the project is completed. Remediation projects completed in Excel yield quick turnover and high-quality output.
Figure 4. Version control log that keeps track of new changes in each file with date of completion, file name and brief description of the modifications. Menus: The Art of Dining collection
Figure 5. Excerpt from the library of formulas with brief descriptions how they work
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ATG Interviews Meg White Director of Vendor Partnerships, Charleston Hub Senior Consultant, Delta Think By Tom Gilson (Associate Editor, Against the Grain) <gilsont@cofc.edu> and Katina Strauch (Editor, Against the Grain) <kstrauch@comcast.net> ATG: Meg you’ve been in the scholarly publishing business for some 25 years. Aside from the obvious technological developments, what would you say have been the most impactful changes that you’ve observed over your career? MW: Due to some lucky timing, my professional career has straddled two eras in scholarly publishing and information. In 1991 as a sales representative for a distributor, I got a glimpse of “the golden days” of publishing, hallmarked by small, privately-held companies in U.S. and academic and healthcare markets still largely buoyed by post-WWII investment. My first job in publishing, in the mid 1990s, was as a marketing manager, a job that has so profoundly changed, it is almost unrecognizable in terms of tools and skill set. The biggest driver of change over the last few decades (excluding the obvious and somewhat amorphous “technology”) is the consolidation of publishing houses and emergence of large multinational corporations. The other impactful change I would identify is the move from a largely mono-directional relationship between scholarly publishing and its readers to a bi-directional relationship. Starting with Gutenberg, publishers created content and metaphorically threw it over the wall, not caring how users interacted with the content, how they used it. Today, the biggest challenge in scholarly information is to build content and tools that are user-centric. Understanding, intimately, how users learn, work, and teach is paramount. ATG: Has the role of libraries in the market changed during that time? If so, in what ways? What about the general relationship between publishers and libraries? Has it changed? If so, how? MW: I think the story of libraries and librarians is still being written. In times of accelerated evolution, it is sometimes useful to think about core competency, so for librarians, these fundamental skills are: gatekeeper, facilitator, analyst. Libraries have been and are the cornerstone of their academic communities and are well positioned to lead the procurement, management, and dissemination of the information their communities need to do their work. This has not changed … although the tools may be a bit different. As for the relationship between libraries and publishers, I think the “throw it over the wall” metaphor applies here as well. In the past, publishers and libraries may have treated their relationship more passively, more transactionally. I think the way forward for both is to focus on their shared mission: improving access to scholarly information. Look at the unprecedented speed with which COVID vaccines have been developed; publishers and libraries played a small, but critical role creating the research environment that enabled those innovations. Collaboration is critical in continuing this type of progress.
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ATG: How do you see this critical collaboration between libraries and publishers unfolding? Can you think of specific examples, or potential scenarios? Is there a specific collaboration that you can point to? MW: Roger Schonfeld recently weighed in on The Scholarly Kitchen (https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2021/01/26/publishers-fail/) on the need for publishers and libraries to put researchers at the center of all their services and activities. Enhanced collaboration between libraries and publishers can help achieve this goal. Let’s expand this argument to include “users” (students, faculty). First, enhanced reporting and data sharing between publishers and librarians (while maintaining user privacy) can greatly inform editorial and product development decision-making for publishers. How can libraries help publishers to be more responsive to user information needs? Second, we can look at access. How can libraries and publishers work together to create the seamless access that users demand and that is required to do their work? How can we collaborate to build systems that satisfy user needs, while respecting the rights of authors and copyright holders? We see nascent examples of this developing capability (SeamlessAccess, WAYFless implementations via Single Sign On providers). ATG: If you were consulting with a publisher who had recently entered the academic market, what first steps would you advise in establishing a relationship with individual libraries? How should they deal with library consortiums? MW: Much of my professional life has been spent working in the distribution side of the business, so I would absolutely advise a new entrant to prioritize their time and resources on building outstanding content and products and leverage the existing (and increasingly robust) supply chain for distribution and operational support. In their 1997 book, The Discipline of Market Leaders, authors Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersma describe three competitive strategies, or value disciplines: operational excellence, customer intimacy, and product leadership. Most successful companies do two of the three very well; very seldom do organizations master all three simultaneously … more often they fail trying. Publishers should focus on product leadership and customer intimacy. The supply chain infrastructure, with libraries playing a key and leadership role, has the ability to effectively support dissemination and access. ATG: How would you define outstanding content? Can you be more specific? MW: I would define outstanding scholarly content as content that is useful to the user to solve a problem, answer a question, further a hypothesis, or master a concept. This can mean a carefully peer reviewed paper or a learning object that clearly illustrates a complex biological mechanism of action. Identifying
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subject matter experts and providing them with the tools and environment in which to turn their information into knowledge is a complex and challenging job, and requires the full attention and resources of a publishing enterprise. ATG: Meg you have recently agreed to join the Charleston Hub team as Director of Vendor Partnership. Can you tell us about that? What exactly will you be doing? MW: As a long-time attendee and participant in the Conference, I have seen the value that this group has been able to contribute to our industry and I am very excited to be working with the Charleston Hub team to help in this mission. Charleston is a unique community … providing multiple platforms and opportunities for members to interact in productive and meaningful ways. The team is constantly trying to add value for members of the community, and I hope I am able to contribute to this goal by identifying opportunities for growth and building programs to support it.
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ATG: What does a good relationship with a vendor look like from the Charleston Hub perspective? And on the flip side, what benefits should a vendor expect from their relationship with the Charleston Hub? MW: The Charleston Hub is home to a diverse community of users with related interests and needs. Functioning at its best, it helps users solve problems and inform their professional lives. For vendors, the Charleston Hub should be a source of industry knowledge, but also serve as a way for them to “tap into” the collective brain of the community. I am looking forward to helping create tools that enable and support more interactive communication. Much like Facebook as a personal community and LinkedIn as a professional community, vendors should expect the Charleston Hub to serve as a gateway to the Charleston community and a pathway to actively engage users of all types. ATG: How do you plan to enable and support the interactive communication between vendors and the Charleston Hub that you just mentioned? What type tools are you thinking of creating? MW: Ideally, we’ll be able to provide an environment that uses technology to its best advantage, moving away from more traditional communication approaches that tend to be passive (such as email) to using data to create more meaningful and bi-directional conversations among our audience. If a conference attendee is struggling to create a sustainable archiving policy, we should recognize that proactively and connect them to resources that help them attack that problem, both strategically and tactically. ATG: From your viewpoint, what does success look like in your role as Director of Vendor Partnerships? Are there specific goals that you’ve set for yourself? MW: There is an incredible amount of expertise and knowledge on the team at Charleston. Their work has created an environment that is unique and distinctive and has a history of innovation. No one does a conference quite like Charleston. No one encourages dialogue quite like Charleston. I would like to be able to work with the team to develop programs and infrastructure that ensure that this community is vibrant and relevant for many years to come. ATG: When you’re not working with publishers, vendors and librarians what do you like to do with your free time? Are there any particular fun things you enjoy doing? MW: Perhaps not surprisingly, I have always loved to read, so I spend a good deal of time with my nose in a book. I also enjoy hot yoga and a good walk with my three dachshunds. I am a recent empty nester, so I am getting used to having extra time in my day and actively trying to figure out “what’s next” now that life allows me that luxury.
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The Innovator’s Saga — An Interview with Tony O’Rourke Column Editor: Darrell W. Gunter (President & CEO, Gunter Media Group) <d.gunter@guntermediagroup.com>
T
his past November, I had the great opportunity to participate as a moderator in Enago’s 2 day conference, See The Future Virtual Conference. I joined Tony O’Rourke over the two days to moderate the excellent panel of speakers. The conference was very successful and I asked Tony for this interview to discuss the objective of the program, the success of it and also the lessons learned. DARRELL: Good morning Tony and welcome to The Innovator’s Saga! It’s always a pleasure to have a very dear friend and colleague on the program to talk about a topic that we both love: scholarly publishing. TONY: Good morning, Darrell. DG: Tony, as the Vice President of Partnerships at Enago, thank you for interrupting your very busy day, you know, to talk about Enago’s great See The Future event for the global region. So, before we jump into that, if you could share with our audience a little bit about your education background and career experience. TO’R: Darrell, I never feel disturbed by you. I’m happy to be here. Okay, well, I’m Tony O’Rourke. As you rightly said, I’m Vice President of the Partnerships for a company called Enago. So, my background is publishing. I’m like a stick of rock. The word “publishing” is from top to tail. I’ve spent my entire career in publishing. I started off working for a magazine publisher in the 80s. Big Dutch magazine publisher who were very active in the UK. There’s a whole story about their relationship with Margaret Thatcher. We’ll get back to that later. And then I moved into more database publishing in the ’90s, and was with a pioneering company called Chadwyck-Healey, who is now part of a bigger organization called ProQuest, who really were leading the way in terms of delivering electronic content to — for the academic market. And it was particularly in the areas of Social Sciences and Humanities where there was a real shortage at that time. In the ’90s to 2000s, I moved into journals publishing, and I spent 12 years as a head of sales and marketing for the Institute of Physics Publishing business here in Bristol in the UK, and the rest of Bristol says, “Hi.” And then I’ve worked in healthcare publishing for the Royal College of Nursing. And done some consulting work with book publishers, with database publishers, with scientific publishers. And now, for the last two years — well, for the last five years but indirectly — for the last two years as an employee, but five years as an associate with Enago. DG: So, tell us about Enago and its mission. And Enago is based out of India, correct? TO’R: Well, yeah. We’re — our operations is based out of India, but we’re an Indian-Japanese-US company. You know, the very first office we opened was in Tokyo in 2005. By the way, this is our 15th anniversary this year. DG: Congratulations! TO’R: Thank you. I can only claim to be part of it for the last five years, indirectly. So we — the core of what we do is to serve academic researchers. Now, you imagine 20% of the world researchers who produce content — academic content, journals, books, conference papers, whatever it might be — only 20% have
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English as a first language. Yet, the expectation, the demand is that all content must be delivered in English. So, they’re at a kind of a — I wouldn’t say disadvantage because some of them speak better English than I do. It’s not hard. So, our job is to level the playing field and companies like us. We’re not the only ones, but we’re one of the bigger ones. So our job is to level the playing field by giving them the tools and the opportunities and the resources to help make their content — whatever it might be — as clear, as legible, as persuasive as possible. So whether this is coming to peer review or is going for assessment, the researcher, the viewer will only focus on the content and not on the way it’s written. So, Enago is one of the — as the company is part of the Crimson Interactive group of companies — we’ve got a translations business. We’ve got a subtitling business. We did a lot of work with film streaming organizations, for example, in Asia. And we have recently launched an AI business where we’re producing AI tools to support the academic workflow. But also, we recently launched the Life Sciences as the medical communications agency, helping companies, pharma companies, and as well as drug developers to educate their audiences around new drugs, new therapies, and new discoveries. So, our business is around content and delivering and supporting the way authors produce content. And so, we’re — yeah, we’re based — our operation is based in India, but we’ve got 500 staff located now in 15 offices all over the world. And we’re truly international. We’ve got customers in 125 countries. We work with thousands of editors every year. We work with tens of thousands of authors every year. It’s a truly, truly global business. DG: Wow! That’s very, very impressive. TO’R: Thank you. DG: Thank you for that. So, recently Enago held its first See The Future conference that featured, of all, people like Nobel Laureate Sir Richard J. Roberts and many executives from the scholarly publishing industry. TO’R: That’s right. DG: What was the objective of See The Future? TO’R: Well, the whole reason behind See The Future was to create education, training resources for the researcher. Now, let me take a step back. So, we’ve been producing webinars and workshops for the last, I think, five-six years. We have a part of our organization called the Enago Academy, and the objective of the Enago Academy is to produce content that will help researchers to do their job more effectively. Now, of course, you know — and our workshops program was extremely active up until the end of 2019, beginning of 2020. We’ll go to universities, hospitals, research organizations all over the world, and train them using expert speakers on best practice on how persons go to communication. Of course, COVID stopped all that. No more workshops. We can’t go in to a university anymore and stand up in front of 200 or 300 or 1,000 researchers.
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So we decided to put more emphasis on our webinar program, and which really stepped up, and we’re getting webinars with thousands and thousands of registrations. And then, in the summer of last year, we decided what we’d do to take it up to another level and that is where See The Future came from was to look at what our audience needs in terms of content, getting a better understanding of how they can still do their work, despite being the COVID circumstances and deliver high quality informative, educational pieces which will help them do their work.
we also wanted to talk about research itself. So one of the first speakers to come on board was the Head of Research Compliance for Harvard who talked about how Harvard was able to maintain its research standards and its research output, despite the pandemic.
So, it really came out of a conversation with — you know, we know how to deliver webinars. We’ve got the content. We’ve got the resources. We just need the speakers who have got the right kind of profile and build it, and the audience will come.
DG: Wow! And so, collectively, over the course of those many days where this program was broadcasted in all those different languages, how many people attended your conference?
DG: And something that Enago did that was very, very unique. You actually held the same conference in the native language of many different countries. TO’R: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. So, bear in mind, we are a global business. Bear in mind, our customers are in 125 different countries. We do more business in Japan than we do in the US throughout, for understandable reasons. We do more business in China than we do in Europe, you know. Maybe, yeah, that’s the level. Our business is global, so we wanted See The Future to be global. We wanted it to be accessible by anybody who is interested in how to develop their research career, how to develop their research knowledge and research communication skills. So we decided in the end to run the event effectively in eight languages. So we had English and seven other languages — Chinese, Korean, Japanese. We had a Russian event, an Arabic event. And we also had parallel sessions in Spanish and Portuguese. So we were getting a truly global audience. And I think that made us — makes it slightly different from a lot of other providers in this space. DG: So from your CEO’s perspective — I remember being involved in a planning meeting — it appears that you achieved your objective as your attendance for this conference was in the thousands. TO’R: Very much so. DG: And so based upon that, what do you feel that the community, the publishing community came away with? TO’R: Well, again, I’ll take a step back because the publishing community was one of really the four core sectors we were focusing on. Yes, we wanted to be able to deliver content which the publishing community would find useful and interesting. And we delivered that. We had sessions on peer review. We had sessions on technology and publishing. But we — as important, and in some cases, in some instances more importantly, we wanted to talk to the researcher because we wanted to deliver content that’s going to help them in their research career. So we had a Noble laureate, Richard Roberts, who won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1993. He talked about his career, and gave some really inspiring thoughts and ideas around, you know, what led him to winning his prize. We had a talk from the former publishing director of Nature, a global journal, if ever there is one, who talked about how to plan their research — how to plan the research communication effectively. We’re also looking at the use of technology, which is as much for the publisher as it is for the author. We looked at education. We wanted to reach higher education specialists. So, we had talks from leading organizations like Quacquarelli Symonds, big ranking organization, focusing on the future of higher education from their perspective. But
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So university managers, researchers, publishers — they were the kind of the three circles that we wanted to talk to and, you know, I really felt we achieved that. It was certainly all on a global basis, got all of our sectors in big numbers.
TO’R: I don’t know the final attendance because — and I’m not trying to sidetrack — I know how many people registered. And, of course, everyone who registered is able to download and view the actual sessions themselves, we had something like just under 20,000 researchers, individuals, publishers, research managers, university administrators attend. And from somewhere like 50 countries. It was a huge, huge — and of course, what we’ve got coming — we are about to launch later this month the See The Future web platform. And that will allow the See The Future brand and ideas to continue because people will still be able to download and see and use — plus use the sessions for their own internal research and training. So, 20,000 to start with and that’s going to grow and grow over the coming months and years. DG: That is awesome. And so, when you think about all of the challenges that are currently facing the scholarly publishing industry, the issues that are facing universities, the issues that are facing students with accessibility issues, what were the key themes that came out of the meeting that you think will benefit the overall population of the scholarly publishing community? TO’R: So, yeah, in a sense, all the sessions were linked into each other. We had really four core themes: Theme #1 – The future for research and the research ecosystem, Theme #2 – The effect of the COVID pandemic on research and higher education, Theme #3 – Open Science – The use of new technology in scholarly publishing. In a sense all four sessions were tied into each other. There were four core themes. The first one was practical — the actual — the conference at start, the idea was what tools can we give the researcher to help them during this pandemic. What can we actually help them to do? What can we, how can we educate them? What skills can we give them or help to give them that will help them in this difficult time? So research during a pandemic was one theme, and we had people like the Head of Research Compliance at Harvard, Ara Tahmassian, and the National Council of University Researchers Administrators, Claire Chen, talking very much around that theme. But we went beyond that. We also looked at the future of higher education. And as I mentioned earlier, Nunzio Quacquarelli for QS gave a very, very insightful talk around his view in terms of the short-term future for education, after the pandemic. The third topic was about the research career, you know, in the current circumstances with the current research ecosystem. You know, how sustainable is the current ecosystem? And you know, how attractive is a research career? With so many really fantastic talks. We’ve got the head of publishing from Wiley, Judy Verses, talking about the research ecosystem. And we had Rich Roberts, the Nobel Laureate for Medicine, talking about his
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career and, you know, how he managed his own career. Sarah Greaves, the ex-publishing director of Nature, talking about how to manage research communication. And the theme which kind of came out almost accidentally, but we were really happy around the use of technology in publishing, around the use of AI. I mean, AI is on everyone’s lips. And we had two excellent speakers, Daniel Ebneter from Karger and Matt Astell from Hindawi, talking about the use of technology to support the work that authors do. So it was kind of research in a broader sense, but touching a lot of different areas. And we had a fantastic talk from Emma Wilson, Royal Society of Chemistry, about open science. Sarah Tegen from the American Chemical Society talking about the importance and the future of peer review. So there’s lots of different things, but one common thing you had throughout was, you know, the different strands of research and the importance and how these areas will talk to each other. DG: This was your first virtual conference due to the challenges that COVID-19 has presented; what lessons did you learn? If you had to grade your first virtual conference, what grade would you give yourself? In the near future, will your conference be a hybrid conference? TO’R: Well, I think we kind of went into this all our eyes open, Darrell. You know, we had been running webinars — which is obviously not the same research conference — the last three or four years. We’ve been seeing the kind of usage these webinars have been getting. A particular certain type of topics brought in a much larger audience and others. And we wanted to do something that was joined up. And one of the really positive things for us was just seeing how open the community was, how hungry they were to participate in events like this. And I kind of understand that, you know. If the labs are closed and there’s little access to good quality conferences, physical conferences, then you have to find something alternatives to train. And I know there is a certain element of Zoom fatigue and webinar fatigue as well, as we all know. So we had to make sure that the sessions that we had were as compelling, as attractive as possible. And I think we did that. But there were lessons. There were other things that we’re thinking about we could have done differently. There were some things in terms of some of the planning issues that we could have done differently. Perhaps spend a bit more time on the detail around some of the planning issues as well. But, you know, these — if I had to score ourselves out of 10, I’d give it a solid nine, maybe nine and a half. Because it ticked every box. DG: Excellent. And — okay, so now in the UK, you’re quarantined. At some point, hopefully, since you guys have the vaccine, things will open up. Are you planning to have this event in November of 2021? TO’R: Well, we’re planning to have the event again. DG: And when will it be? TO’R: Well, this is that — we were actually talking about the event or possibly the events. Yeah, we’re looking at how we can develop the See The Future brand because it’s kind of developed a life of its own now. You know, it’s become an entity of its own. And we want to make sure that we can build on that. So, yes, we want to have another conference, but we’re looking at other opportunities as well. Whether that’s through our Webinar Program or through other channels to be able to continue that brand and deliver the actual content in the same way, or even maybe, you know, a slightly different way. But now we definitely want to have other primary events. And that’s — we’re in that
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sort of process now but we’re definitely going to continue to build on that brand. DG: And so you said that this is definitely going to happen again. But you also hinted that there may be some other events. TO’R: Yeah. DG: Are you at liberty to share that? TO’R: No. We haven’t really decided ourselves how to go with this, but we know we want to do more events. What we haven’t decided is exactly how we will deliver that, and that’s something we’ll be looking at in the coming weeks. You know, at the moment we’re still building the See The Future website. We’re still pulling content into that. And then from there we’re going to think about how we can actually extend the brand. And certainly there will be a 2021 See The Future event. Whether it’s called See The Future or something else, still to be decided. But I’d like to think it’ll still be called that. But we want to build on that brand. DG: Seems to me that would make sense since all of the brochures and the websites, everything was very elegant. See The Future is a brilliant tag line! TO’R: Yeah. This is the thing… this is the thing about the detail — the little things. Because I was so immersed in the event, the little things, with standing back, I can say, “Well, okay.” With a different resort or with a different mindset or perhaps a different set of skills in my head, that we could have done more creatively, more engagingly but, you know, everything worked. Everything seems to fall into place. DG: So let’s switch gears a little bit. Let’s talk a little bit more broadly, and keep in mind that, you know, you’re here representing Enago. So if there’s a question that I might ask that you might say, “Nah, I think I’ll pass on it.” that’s quite all right, but what are the key issues that you think there are facing the scholarly publishing industry? If you had to say, “These are the three challenging issues for the scholarly publishing industry,” what would they be and what is your magic wand to address these three issues? TO’R: Just three? DG: Just three because otherwise we’ll be here till tomorrow, right! TO’R: Well, you know, the great thing about the scholarly publishing industry is that, you know, we’re in a sector, which has existed for hundreds of years. You know, people have been publishing in journals and publishing in scholarly books. You know, journals have been in existence since the 17th century in the same — roughly the same kind of sense as we know them today. You know, business models are reinventing themselves because one of the challenges is how publishers are having to address these changes into funding mandates. For example, you know, looking at shifting from a subscription model in the journals world to the ebooks world to read and publish model where there are no subscription fees anymore. It’s that licensing publication, pushing in into books and journals. And you know some, some publishers are doing it very well. Some are doing it very effectively. Smaller publishers struggle because they don’t have the same resources. I think one of the challenges that we’re going to see over the next five to ten years is more and more smaller publishers will either — not necessarily disappear — but they will start — maybe they’ll lose some of their identity by merging or moving their activities with other larger publishers. And it’s kind of a natural evolution, you know. It’s not the survival of the fittest, but of course, in this case it’s survival of the biggest because you’ve got the kind of resources
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that you can invest, to really, you know, make sure that your business is secure. And then, some of these smaller publishers just don’t have that.
want to make sure they put a marker in the ground to say, “Look, I’ve done this. This can be associated with me.” It may not be perfect, and in very many cases, not.
You know, another challenge is how specificity is kind of the expectations of the researcher in terms of, you know — in the old world where you submit your article to a journal. When you had to submit your manuscript, your sign your rights to the publisher. Now, universities’ funders are insisting that those rights are being retained. So, of course, it does restrict some of the ways publishers can help to reinvest in their own system because those rights just aren’t there anymore.
You know, many instances of the final paper in a journal would be almost the same as a preprint because it’s — virtually nothing changes, but there are also instances where a paper can fundamentally change.
And you know the sheer explosion. One of the biggest, I think, challenges and threats is the sheer explosion in an output of research. You know, every year, research in the last 20 years has grown by 3% or 4%, you know. And the sort of organizations that are going to thrive over the next decade are going to be those organizations that help researchers to cut through the chaff and get straight to the contents, can help them to do their research. And that potentially might undermine, you know, some of the smaller publishers who do not have the technical resources to identify new research opportunities in a timely and effective manner. DG: Absolutely, but let’s just dive a little deeper. What about preprints? What are your thoughts about preprints? Preprints have exploded with COVID, right? TO’R: Well — listen, I’ve worked in physics. I’ve worked in physics publishing for 12 years. And in physics publishing we had the archive, arXiv, which is now hosted at Cornell University. It was for many years hosted down at New Mexico, at the Los Alamos laboratories. You know, physicists have been — physicists, chemists, mathematicians have been sending preprints to each other by mail for years and years and years and years before the preprint archives exists. In 1991, you saw the first preprint archive with arXiv itself. And now you’ve got bioRxiv, medRxiv. Yeah, to an extent they challenge the kind of authority of the journal or the book because it’s now no longer the only place where that content can be found. But, frankly, you know, that author could also submit their paper to an institution repository, on their own personal repository, on the subject repository, you know, and the challenge to the publisher is to make sure that the world understands what they’re seeing in the journal or in the book is the version of record. DG: Right. TO’R: Or as most of the version of record as possible. DG: Exactly. Well, you know, let me give you an example. Ripeta is a new company that allows a publisher, researcher to utilize their AI tool to just determine if a manuscript meets the requirements of Open Science and Reproducibility requirements. TO’R: Yeah. DG: Can you reproduce the results because they check to see if there’s a data availability statement. And one of the key things is that — one of the concerns with the preprints is that during this COVID event, the industry felt that the preprints were not at the quality that they should be. TO’R: Well, let me — that’s kind of the whole point, isn’t it? You know, the point that the author sends the paper to the preprint is when they think they finished the research, and they
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DG: Right. TO’R: So there’s a difference between putting a stake in the ground and actually then having the paper validated. DG: Right. Speaking about digital stake! TO’R: Because there are areas where the preprint is seen as the point of validation. It means — again, if I talk about physics, there’s a high energy physics, for example, where the preprint — or even in astrophysics, the preprint. Because, you know, in certain cases, the paper doesn’t really change very much between the preprint and the final version. DG: Speaking of digital stakes in the ground, you know, there’s a new company called Underline that is establishing a digital video library, repository of conference lectures. What do you think about that being part of the scientific record? TO’R: Well, I think, it’s — again it’s a natural evolution. It’s another channel. It’s another set of resources for the library, for the information manager to gather. So universities typically have been storing recordings, videos of lectures. My daughter recently finished a Master’s degree from the University of Manchester. And if she — you know, the second half of a Master’s degree was all done from home, either through live video streams like this, or downloaded lectures. So Underline — what Underline is doing is creating another really useful repository for content to be made available. I think it’s a natural evolution. DG: Wow! It’s good to hear. That is very interesting. What final thoughts would you like to leave with our audience about Enago and See The Future? What should we expect over the next 12 months? TO’R: Well, look out for another event. Got some big plans for 2021, more fantastic speakers, about issues which are going to address the broad research community in many, many different ways. So look out for those throughout LinkedIn, through Facebook, of course, social media for news around the event. And hopefully, we’ll get an even bigger audience next time. DG: Wonderful. I think you had a very big audience, first. TO’R: Wow! DG: Did you happen to know Adolfo Rodriguez from UNAM in Mexico? TO’R: Not personally. DG: Not personally. I don’t know if you are aware but he passed away recently. He was a visionary. He led UNAM to be one of the first three digital libraries in the world when he signed the agreement for Elsevier’s EES (Electronic Subscription Service) that is now call ScienceDirect Online. A true digital visionary. TO’R: I’m sorry to hear that. DG: Tony, thanks for coming on our program to talk about the great things that are going on in Enago. TO’R: You are very welcome, Darrell. Great to see you again.
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On Bookstores, Libraries & Archives in the Digital Age By Brewster Kahle (Founder & Digital Librarian, Internet Archive) Back in 2006, I was honored to give a keynote at the meeting of the Society of American Archivists (https://www2.archivists.org/), when the president of the Society presented me with a framed blown-up letter “S.” This was an inside joke about the Internet Archive being named in the singular, Archive, rather than the plural Archives. Of course, he was right, as I should have known all along. The Internet Archive had long since grown out of being an “archive of the Internet” — a singular collection, say of web pages — to being “archives on the Internet,” plural. My evolving understanding of these different names might help focus a discussion that has become blurry in our digital times: the difference between the roles of publishers, bookstores, libraries, archives, and museums. These organizations and institutions have evolved with different success criteria, not just because of the shifting physical manifestation of knowledge over time, but because of the different roles each group plays in a functioning society. For the moment, let’s take the concepts of Library and Archive.
had what was needed for you to explore and if they did not have it, the reference librarian would proudly proclaim: “We can get it for you!” I loved interlibrary loans — not so much in practice, because it was slow, but because they gave you a glimpse of a network of institutions sharing what they treasured with anyone curious enough to want to know more. It was a dream straight out of Borges’ imagination (if you have not read Borges’1 short stories, see https://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Category:Short_stories_by_Jorge_Luis_ Borges, they are not to be missed, and they are short. I recommend you write them on the little slip of paper you keep in your wallet.) I couldn’t afford to own many of the books I wanted, so it turned off that acquisitive impulse in me. But the libraries allowed me to read anything, old and new. I found I consumed library books very differently. I rarely even brought a book from the shelf to a table; I would stand, browse, read, learn and search in the aisles. Dipping in here and there. The card catalog got me to the right section and from there I learned as I explored.
The traditional definition of a library is that it is made up of published materials, while an archive is made up of unpublished materials. Archives play an important function that must be maintained — we give frightfully little attention to collections of unpublished works in the digital age. Think of all the drafts of books that have disappeared once we started to write with word processors and kept the files on fragile computer floppies and disks. Think of all the videotapes of lectures that are thrown out or were never recorded in the first place.
Libraries were there to spark my own ideas. The library did not set out to tell a story as a museum would. It was for me to find stories, to create connections, have my own ideas by putting things together. I would come to the library with a question and end up with ideas. Rarely were these facts or statistics — but rather new points of view. Old books, historical newspapers, even the collection of reference books all illustrated points of view that were important to the times and subject matter. I was able to learn from others who may have been far away or long deceased. Libraries presented me with a conversation, not an answer. Good libraries cause conversations in your head with many writers. These writers, those librarians, challenged me to be different, to be better.
Bookstores: The Thrill of the Hunt Let’s try another approach to understanding distinctions between bookstores, libraries and archives. When I was in my 20’s living in Boston — before Amazon.com and before the World Wide Web (but during the early Internet) — new and used bookstores were everywhere. I thought of them as catering to the specialized interests of their customers: small, selective, and only offering books that might sell and be taken away, with enough profit margin to keep the store in business. I loved them. I especially liked the used bookstore owners — they could peer into my soul (and into my wallet!) to find the right book for me. The most enjoyable aspect of the bookstore was the hunt — I arrived with a tiny sheet of paper in my wallet with a list of the books I wanted, would bring it out and ask the used bookstore owners if I might go home with a bargain. I rarely had the money to buy new books for myself, but I would give new books as gifts. While I knew it was okay to stay for awhile in the bookstore just reading, I always knew the game.
Libraries: Offering Conversations not Answers The libraries that I used in Boston — MIT Libraries, Harvard Libraries, the Boston Public Library — were very different. I knew of the private Boston Athenæum (https://www.bostonathenaeum. org/) but I was not a member, so I could not enter. Libraries for me seemed infinite, but still tailored to individual interests. They
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Staying for hours in a library was not an annoyance for the librarians — it was the point. Yes, you could check books out of the library, and I would, but mostly I did my work in the library — a few pages here, a few pages there — a stack of books in a carrel with index cards tucked into them and with lots of handwritten notes (uh, no laptops yet). But libraries were still specialized. To learn about draft resisters during the Vietnam War, I needed access to a law library. MIT did not have a law collection and this was before Lexis/ Nexis and Westlaw. I needed to get to the volumes of case law of the United States. Harvard, up the road, had one of the great law libraries, but as an MIT student, I could not get in. My MIT professor lent me his ID that fortunately did not include a photo, so I could sneak in with that. I spent hours in the basement of Harvard’s Law Library reading about the cases of conscientious objectors and others. But why was this library of law books not available to everyone? It stung me. It did not seem right. A few years later I would apply to library school at Simmons College to figure out how to build a digital library system that would be closer to the carved words over the Boston Public Library’s door in Copley Square: “Free to All.”
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Archives: A Wonderful Place for Singular Obsessions When I quizzed the archivist at MIT, she explained what she did and how the MIT Archives worked. I loved the idea, but did not spend any time there — it was not organized for the busy undergraduate. The MIT Library was organized for easy access; the MIT Archives included complete collections of papers, notes, ephemera from others, often professors. It struck me that the archives were collections of collections. Each collection faithfully preserved and annotated. I think of them as having advertisements on them, beckoning the researcher who wants to dive into the materials in the archive and the mindset of the collector. So in this formulation, an archive is a collection, archives are collections of collections. Archivists are presented with collections, usually donations, but sometimes there is some money involved to preserve and catalog another’s life work. Personally, I appreciate almost any evidence of obsession — it can drive toward singular accomplishments. Archives often reveal such singular obsessions. But not all collections are archived, as it is an expensive process.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Brewster Kahle, Founder & Digital Librarian, Internet Archive A passionate advocate for public Internet access and a successful entrepreneur, Brewster Kahle has spent his career intent on a singular focus: providing Universal Access to All Knowledge. He is the founder and Digital Librarian of the Internet Archive, one of the largest digital libraries in the world, which serves more than a million patrons each day. Creator of the Wayback Machine and lending millions of digitized books, the Internet Archive works with more than 800 library and university partners to create a free digital library, accessible to all. Soon after graduating from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he studied artificial intelligence, Kahle helped found the company Thinking Machines, a parallel supercomputer maker. He is an Internet pioneer, creating the Internet’s first publishing system called Wide Area Information Server (WAIS). In 1996, Kahle co-founded Alexa Internet, with technology that helps catalog the Web, selling it to Amazon.com in 1999. Elected to the Internet Hall of Fame, Kahle is also a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a member of the National Academy of Engineering, and holds honorary library doctorates from Simmons College and University of Alberta.
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The cost of archiving collections is changing, especially with digital materials, as is cataloging and searching those collections. But it is still expensive. When the Internet Archive takes on a physical collection, say of records, or old repair manuals, or materials from an art group, we have to weigh the costs and the potential benefits to researchers in the future. Archives take the long view. One hundred years from now is not an endpoint, it may be the first time a collection really comes back to light.
Digital Libraries: A Memex Dream, a Global Brain So when I helped start the Internet Archive, we wanted to build a digital library — a “complete enough” collection, and “organized enough” that everything would be there and findable. A Universal Library. A Library of Alexandria for the digital age. Fulfilling the memex dream2 of Vanevar Bush3 (do read “As We May Think4”), of Ted Nelson’s5 Xanadu, of Tim Berners-Lee’s6 World Wide Web, of Danny Hillis’7 Thinking Machine, Raj Reddy’s8 Universal Access to All Knowledge, and Peter Russell’s9 Global Brain.10 Could we be smarter by having people, the library, networks, and computers all work together? That is the dream I signed on to. I dreamed of starting with a collection — an Archive, an Internet Archive. This grew to be a collection of collections: Archives. Then a critical mass of knowledge complete enough to inform citizens worldwide: a Digital Library. A library accessible by anyone connected to the Internet, “Free to All.”
Endnotes 1. https://openlibrary.org/authors/OL18928A/Jorge_Luis_ Borges 2. http://brewster.kahle.org/2019/01/13/as-we-may-thinkpaper-memex-seen-through-eyes-of-the-current-web/ 3. https://openlibrary.org/authors/OL1122532A/Vannevar_ Bush 4. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1945/07/ as-we-may-think/303881/ 5. https://openlibrary.org/authors/OL247519A/Ted_Nelson 6. https://openlibrary.org/authors/OL25245A/Tim_BernersLee 7. https://openlibrary.org/authors/OL235164A/W._Daniel_ Hillis 8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raj_Reddy 9. https://openlibrary.org/authors/OL225132A/Peter_ Russell?mode=ebooks 10. https://openlibrary.org/books/OL870236M/The_global_ brain_awakens
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ATG PROFILES ENCOURAGED
Matteo Cavalleri Publisher Wiley 111 River Street Hoboken, NJ 07030 <mcavalleri@wiley.com> Born and lived: Brooklyn via Italy, Spain, Sweden, and Germany.
Professional career and activities: PhD in Chemical Physics, then publishing. Family: I’ve got twin toddlers. Send help.
Goal I hope to achieve five years from now: I am working towards having a strong case for promotion to full professor, so that’s what I hope to achieve within five years. How/where do I see the industry in five years: Libraries will begin to make use of AI in the services to their patrons. You will see reference services offered by AI chat-bots. This isn’t the best for the librarians whose jobs they will replace, but I believe AI is going to be playing a huge role in library services and systems.
Jeff Lang Assitant Director, Platform Development ACS Publications <J_Lang@acs.org>
In my spare time: What’s that?
Pet peeves: Scientific articles disseminated as PDF.
Most memorable career achievement: Article from PhD thesis selected as “10 Top Scientific Breakthrough” by Science Magazine in 2004. How/where do I see the industry in five years: Please tell me we are not using the PDF then.
Christopher Eaker Data Curation Librarian University of Tennessee Libraries 1015 Volunteer Boulevard 236 John C. Hodges Library Knoxville, TN 37996 Phone: (865) 974-4404 <ceaker@utk.edu> http://lib.utk.edu/scholar
Born and lived: Born: New Orleans, LA; lived in Birmingham, AL, Atlanta, GA, and Knoxville, TN. Professional career and activities: I have a BS in civil engineering from Georgia Tech (2000). I spent 10 years as a civil engineer designing wastewater treatment plants and pump stations around Georgia and Tennessee. Then I went back and got my masters degree in information science from the University of Tennessee (2013). I’ve been the Data Curation Librarian at the UT Libraries since 2013. Family: Married with one son.
In my spare time: I love to read, ride my bike, and hike in the beautiful mountains of east Tennessee. Favorite books: What Should I Do With My Life? By Po Bronson. It’s a series of stores from people he interviewed about how they found their life’s purpose, all the twists and turns it took them on, and how their journey took them to unexpected places.
Professional career and activities: Jeff Lang is Assistant Director for Platform Development in The American Chemical Society’s Digital Strategy department, where he supports innovation and product development that explores the untapped potential of technology to enhance scholarship. Prior to this role, Jeff worked at ProQuest in many departments, including Product Owner for RefWorks and Community Manager of GradShare.com a graduate student support community. Jeff has degrees in Computer Science and Information Management and has spent the last 15 years at the nexus of technology and academic publishing services. In my spare time: I love running in the Washington D.C. suburbs and especially when I travel. A long run during the latest snow storm was one of the highlights of my year so far (and rare occurance around D.C. lately). I have also taken advantage of the COVID commute this year to start cooking again. My favorite gift from the holidays was a conical saucier for making roux. Favorite books: Generally sci-fi or fantasy. Anything by Neal Stephenson, Ursula Le Guin or Neil Gaiman. Pet peeves: Slow walking. Keep up.
How/where do I see the industry in five years: I’m confident that five years from now, authors who want to publish the primary research data from their experiments will have many options for making it findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable. Many more will publish that way because it is common and easy to do. More tools to interrogate all that data will become available through a web browser, making journal articles robust and dynamic when read online.
Babak Mostaghaci Editor Wiley-VCH Boschstraße 12 69469 Weinheim, Germany <bmostaghac@wiley.com>
Philosophy: I’m not sure where I discovered this quote, but it’s my favorite: “You can’t answer a question someone isn’t asking.” It says to me that people will not hear what ever advice or criticism you have to offer if they are not ready for it. Give them time, and when they’re ready, the words will be received. It’s similar to the saying “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” Most memorable career achievement: Initially it was passing the 8-hour professional engineer exam on the first shot. Then when I changed careers, I had to let that certification lapse which was hard. But now my greatest achievement is getting tenure and promotion at my currently institution.
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Born and lived: Born in Iran, Based in Germany Professional career and activities: PhD in Biopharmaceutics from Saarland University, Postdoc in Max-Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems. Currently editor at Wiley and part-time MBA student at Mannheim Business School. Family: Married.
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In my spare time: Nothing unusual — reading, watching movies, playing videogames. :-) Pet peeves: Doing mind-numbingly boring tasks!
Most memorable career achievement: The launch of Advanced Intelligent Systems in 2019.
Meg White Director of Vendor Partnerships, Charleston Hub and Senior Consultant, Delta Think 106 Quaker Lane, Villanova, PA 19085 Phone: (610) 529-3118 <megmwhite13@gmail.com> charleston-hub.com
How/where do I see the industry in five years: Open science and open access publishing will be more dominant. Technology will have a more significant role in scholarly publishing, revolutionizing submission and peer-review processes, and format/type of published articles.
Born and lived: Philadelphia, PA, Athens, GA, Winston-Salem, NC, Philadelphia, PA, St. Louis, MO, Baltimore, MD, Philadelphia, PA.
Professional career and activities: 25+ year career spent in health sciences publishing and distribution at organizations large and small. Former President of the American Medical Publisher’s Association. Charleston Conference Director. Particular affinity for doing the hard stuff.
Alberto Pepe Sr. Director of Strategy and Innovation Atypon 111 River Street Hoboken, NJ 07030 <apepe@atypon.com> albertopepe.com Born and lived: Manduria, Puglia, Italy.
In my spare time: Yoga, running, mindfulness.
Favorite books: Sum by David Eagleman, If on a winter’s night a traveler by Italo Calvino, Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari.
Philosophy: If you really want to know — Stoicism, Atheism, Optimistic Nihilism. Most memorable career achievement: ASIS&T Best Dissertation Award. Goal I hope to achieve five years from now: Move publishing beyond the PDF (Note: this was same goal 5 years ago). How/where do I see the industry in five years: Somewhere beyond the PDF.
Early life: Eldest of three siblings, Catholic school, lotsa sports
Family: Married to Jabin White (yes, JSTOR Jabin White). Two adult children, Kate (23) and Tommy (19). Three dachshunds, Oliver, Scout, and Wellsie and one cat, Samantha. In my spare time: Reading, running, dog walking, and cheering for the Wake Forest Demon Deacons! Favorite books: The Color Purple, A Prayer for Owen Meany, A Gentleman in Moscow, These Truths, Harry Potter series (especially #4. #6 and #7). Pet peeves: Complacency, meanness. Philosophy: True believer.
Most memorable career achievement: I think the real magic comes when you get glimpses of a product or a project that you worked on making a difference for a student, clinician, researcher, or librarian. Those moments are special and are the best reward. And a good reminder that there is always more to do! Goal I hope to achieve five years from now: Figure out my second act. How/where do I see the industry in five years: Borrowing from Annette Thomas, as stated from the stage in Charleston 2019: open, connected, seamless.
Rumors continued from page 41 been available online to clients since 2001. This service is the most comprehensive, searchable collection of full-text African electronic journals available on one platform which focuses on information originating from or pertaining to Africa. Sabinet has recently announced the migration of Sabinet African Journals (www.journals.co.za) to Atypon’s Literatum online publishing and website development platform. With a sound performance history of over 35 years, Sabinet’s roots are in library support services, where it is recognized for providing central platforms for collaboration and resource sharing among libraries. Founded in 1996, Atypon is headquartered in Santa Clara, California, with over 470 staff in 9 offices around the world and is owned by Wiley. With Sabinet’s launch, Atypon now has clients on 6 of 7 continents. https://www.sabinet.co.za/ Did you catch this charming article in the recent Publishing Perspectives? Richard Charkin: On the Long Walk to Audiobooks. Mr. Charkin has been walking as much as he can during the lockdown. Besides loving opera (some of my favorite music), Mr. Charkin is learning to love audiobooks. So am I. I order a lot of books from Amazon and when I do, I get credits for au-
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diobooks. I love mysteries and am reading several at the same time on my iPhone plus a biography of Mozart! To quote Mr. Charkin — “These audiobooks are not perfect yet, but publishing has always been about aiming for perfection but accepting the best available. I think all nonfiction and academic publishers should investigate auto-narration as a service to their authors and to the listeners worldwide, most importantly students and the visually challenged. Experimentation is at the heart of adapting to new circumstances and this seems to me an experiment well worth testing. The more publishers test the faster the technology will improve.” Mr. Charkin is a former president of the IPA and the UK PA and for 11 years was executive director of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. He has held many senior posts at major publishing houses. He has also been the featured speaker at several of the Fiesole Collection Development Retreats! https://publishingperspectives.com/2021/03/richard-charkin-onthe-long-walk-to-audiobooks-covid19/ The Bodleian Libraries and Gale announce the launch of the Gale Scholar Asia Pacific, Digital Humanities Oxford Fellowships continued on page 61
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COMPANY PROFILES ENCOURAGED ACS Publications
Atypon
155 16th Street NW Washington D.C. 20036 https://pubs.acs.org/
5201 Great America Pkwy Student Boardroom Santa Clara, CA 95054 Phone: (408) 988-1240 www.atypon.com
Association memberships: 155,000 members.
Key products and services: ACS Publications Journals & Books, Chemical & Engineering News, SciMeetings.
Affiliated companies: Inera, Wiley.
Core markets/clientele: Chemistry.
Association memberships, etc.: SSP, STM, ALPSP, NISO.
Number of books published annually (print, electronic, open access, etc.): 40 books/year.
Core markets/clientele: Scholarly publishers.
Number of employees: 1,800 employees.
Total number of journals currently published: 75 journals.
History and brief description of your company/publishing program: ACS Publications’ commitment to publishing high-quality research continues to attract impactful research from top authors around the globe. As the machinery of science continues to turn, ACS is committed to keeping pace. We continue to expand our offerings and improve our existing resources to help scientists accelerate their research and support their careers. A division of the American Chemical Society, ACS Publications supports researchers through journals, eBooks, scientific programs, and the news magazine Chemical & Engineering News.
Key products and services: Literatum digital publishing platform, Researcher productivity tools: Scitrus, Manuscripts, Authorea, Connect. Number of employees: 470
History and brief description of your company/publishing program: Atypon was founded in 1996, driven by its founder’s desire to democratize scientific research by expanding its availability, which meant giving scholarly publishers the software that they needed to excel in a new — and often intimidating — digital environment. 25 years later Atypon is building new tools to make the workflows of practitioners, clinicians, and researchers more convenient and productive — from discovery and reading to collaborating and authoring. Is there anything else that you think would be of interest to our readers? Atypon’s development of free researcher tools to help its publisher clients improve their value to their readers.
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program. Funded by Gale, the fellowships will support three scholars for a three-month period of research into a digital humanities related topic at the University of Oxford, using the Centre for Digital Scholarship of the Bodleian Libraries. The goal of the program is to encourage emerging digital humanities scholarship in the Asia Pacific region and progress the contribution of non-Western and regional perspectives in the field of digital humanities research. The Bodleian Libraries and Gale would like to congratulate the following candidates awarded the fellowships in 2021/2022: Dr. Tuo Chen (Research Assistant Professor, Faculty of History, Nankai University, China), Dr. Hsuan-Ying Tu (Assistant Professor in Early Modern History, School of History and Researcher of the Research Centre for Digital Humanities, Renmin University of China), and Dr. Mark Byron (Associate Professor in Modern and Contemporary Literature, Department of English, University of Sydney). “Welcoming our first cohort of Gale Fellows is tremendously exciting. They are a group of leading researchers and academics who will advance their respective fields through exploring new forms of scholarship using digital techniques and approaches,” said Richard Ovendon, Bodley’s Librarian in the University of Oxford. https:// www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/csb/fellowships
4. What will the transition back towards “normal” look like and how messy will the next year or two be? Will administrators think about going back to the way things were before? Will they insist on going back or will they expect and reward new modes of working? What will be permanently different?
That’s it for now, y’all. Please let me know what you think of the new changes to ATG! And Happy Spring! Yr. Ed.
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5. It’s not all about us. We’re concerned about the future of the partners and institutions we interact with: how their challenges will impact us — and how ours will impact them. We don’t and can’t live in isolation from other sectors. Of course there’s always the biggest unknown of all: what don’t we realize we don’t know yet? I spent some time this week listening to extended discussions about installing electric auto chargers in the parking spaces of our condo building’s garage. Futuristic thinking? Not really, for I also heard on an Economist podcast the CEO of Volkswagen describe the new generation of charging equipment that gives a 100-kilometer dose of juice in less than ten minutes. Will all those expensive spaces we’re now putting in the garage, on the assumption that you need to charge your vehicle overnight, quickly seem superfluous in three to five years? Which shiny new technology to bet on? Does complete transformation lie just around the corner? Think of electric cars as a metaphor for the future of library services! Interesting times, eh?
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Back Talk — The Pandemic Column Editor: Ann Okerson (Advisor on Electronic Resources Strategy, Center for Research Libraries) <aokerson@gmail.com>
T
he Pandemic. Will it soon be over? Well, perhaps not, but some folks are getting vaccines, others will have them soon, the rate of increase of new cases is rapidly dropping at the moment (though new variants are appearing). Maybe it’s time to draw up a little balance sheet for COVID time: the good, the not good, and the unknown. What would you add to these lists?
So, What’s Been Good? 1. We’ve proved that librarians and libraries have a remarkable ability to pivot and deliver service in new modes. Perhaps this is because we’ve often been in fact a bit ahead of our patrons, often more aware of what’s around the corner and how it could enhance their lives. When they’re busy, they can sometimes ignore us; when they’re scrambling to keep their balance, our help turns out to be very valuable. 2. We’ve discovered that working remotely allows better work-life balance, less time commuting, more sleep, and a healthier lifestyle closer to our families. Dividing people’s lives into home-world and working-world and chasing back and forth between the two is a modern lifestyle: maybe we can start to see past that now? 3. All along, we’ve been right about the value of digital resources, and this year has allowed us take patrons on a deep dive into digital collections and services to show how we can take more advantage of their riches and possibilities. It’s a great thing that the controversy of the moment centers on controlled digital lending! 4. Virtual events let us “meet” more easily from places where we’re comfortable, where we feel safe and in control of our environments, without privileging the “main building” or “the top floor” or “the central campus.” Extending our range for dealing with others, locally and even globally, and making us more comfortable doing so, allows for us to do better work. 5. When done right (as at Charleston in November 2020!), conferences can see a marked increase in attendance and are more accessible to participants, without the costs of travel and such — and that’s good for commitment, access, and inclusiveness.
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Toni Nix, Advertising Manger, Against the Grain, Charleston Hub <justwrite@lowcountry.com> Phone: 843-835-8604 • Fax: 843-835-5892 62 Against the Grain / February 2021
6. Librarians unleashed! Unfettered! The pandemic has challenged us to use our imaginations and rewarded us for doing so.
The Not So Good (or sometimes bad): 1. We’ve been too much deprived of normal human contact, informal interaction, relationship-making. We may need to go back to the office, but we definitely need to go back to the break room; the cafeteria; the crackers and cheese table at the afternoon lecture; the networking events and workshops. (Here I have to give a shout out to CRL for having mastered the inclusive virtual job interview process, as well as all-staff training events — who knew these kinds of activities, when done virtually, could generate such enormously productive, positive results.) 2. It’s harder to introduce students to the contemporary library and all its riches if they can never — or almost never — come into our buildings. How shall we reach them best? Tele-librarianship doesn’t quite feel as engaging as physical interaction. 3. Too many institutions are now budget-stretched. If we think our financial situation was bad before, observe the unexpected reductions and lack of financial predictability that have struck a number of libraries. These financial swings affect libraries directly (cuts to our own budget) and indirectly (what are the consequences when, for example, international students stay home, a university’s graduate programs shrink, faculty are laid off, enrollments sag ... ?). 4. With emptier facilities, all of us need to rethink the value of physical spaces and how to use them to best advantage. 5. Our physical collections (print in the open stacks, everything in special collections) have been much less accessible, much less used — how do we put them back on their feet, recognizing them for the distinctive content they provide?
The Unknown — the effects we won’t be able to assess for a long time: 1. Effect on workplace relationships (among workers, between workers and supervisors, with senior management, etc.). While it’s newly challenging in these times to motivate ourselves and our co-workers, it’s perhaps even harder to “manage up” and build relationships with supervisors — and supervisors’ supervisors. And, how do we maintain relationships with colleagues we rarely see? How have those relationships shifted during this uncertain period? 2. Future of travel: how do we maintain and build working relationships with colleagues elsewhere and even around the world, how do we spot emerging talent, etc.? I travel a lot and value new venues for identifying new friends and colleagues, and thus the ability to advance richer partnerships that contribute to the work we all do. 3. This was in a special way the year of concern for equity, diversity, and inclusion. How does the ending-of-the-pandemic environment help or hinder efforts to enhance our working and service environments? continued on page 61
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