The Library July/August/September 2013
The library ground floor - refurbished
Contents July/August/September 2013
The Library, Goldsmiths Lucy
Lucy Lambe
Forum for Interlending: Interlend 2013 27-28 June
Paula Barbato
SCONUL Representatives conference 3rd July 2013, Anglia Ruskin University
Helen Stephen
Using Social Media to promote archive use
Rebecca Randall
SPRUCE Digital Preservation Mashup, London 2 – 4 July 2013
Forum for Interlending: Interlend 2013 27-28 June “To every book it’ s reader, to every reader his book” Day 1 The conference was opened by Professor Charles Oppenheim, copyright genius. We were particularly lucky to have him, as he announced his retirement at the conference and this was to be his final public speaking appointment. It is currently a very exciting time for copyright as several changes to UK copyright law have been proposed and are making their way through parliament. Most importantly for the ILL world, it has been proposed that copyright covering fair use by libraries will no longer be trumped by contract law (for example e-journal licenses). Professor Oppenheim’s very wordy presentation is available on the FIL website1. Next up we had a session from Kate Ebdon from the British Library on the latest developments there. The British Library has been doing some research into the way that academics find and access resources. One interesting finding was that arts and humanities academics are amongst the most likely to access articles via ILL, but only after trying to access for free online! Kate then went on to explain the new pricing model, which includes a reduced rate for secure electronic delivery if the document was born digital. It was interesting to note that many conference attendees were already ordering all documents from the British Library using SED, then passing it on to their readers in 1
http://www.forumforinterlending.org.uk/wpcontent/uploads/2013/07/charles-oppenheim.pdf
the requested format. This is something we could implement quite easily at Goldsmiths. Carol Giles from the University of Exeter took us through the big changes that have taken place in their interlibrary loans department. They have created a bespoke order form and online payment service with the help of their IT services at the University. The process at Exeter is complicated by the use of tokens for payment (each ILL costs a massive £8.50), and there are two campus libraries where interlibrary loans are held for collection. The system is a long way off from being perfect, and I felt that we are quite lucky to not have to deal with payments for ILLs. The day’s final presentation came from Elisabeth Robinson at OCLC on the developments of Bookmark Your Library2 which is a database of all UK public libraries and their services, and FAB Libraries3 which is a national union catalogue for the UK. FAB Libraries aims to open up the quite valuable collections available in public libraries, and can generate more income for libraries through ILL. Day 2 The day began with the FIL AGM, which saw two committee members stand down, and two new members voted on (with me being one of them!). I’m really excited to be on the FIL committee and look forward to being part of Interlend 2014. Following this, we had a guided tour of Cardiff central library. First impressions as you walk into this brand new building are the impact of colour and light throughout. There is glass everywhere and minimal signage, with low level shelving and an interesting use of colour to create “wayfinders” to encourage movement 2 3
http://www.bookmarkyourlibrary.org.uk http://fablibraries.worldcat.org
throughout the whole building. All of this creates a well organised yet welcoming feel, and it’s not hard to see the inspiration that came from a commercial/retail environment.
library collection from patron-drivenacquisitions, to same day scans from the British Library. Projects like UKRR mean that we can do this in a way that preserves a national collection with minimal duplication. As Phil Bradley put it in his closing speech at Umbrella 2013, libraries are moving towards connections, not collections. The break-out session I chose to attend was on the “Walk in Access Wales” project, led by Bronwen Blatchford. This is a project which aimed to give access to e-resources at the University of Wales for non-students, both as a way to engage with the local community and to support the move towards open access provision to publicly funded research, as recommended by the Finch report4.
Cardiff Central Library
main feature was the children’s library, set on its own mezzanine level with only one way in and out, it was a safe space for children but also felt special, like being in a tree house! The enthusiastic children’s librarians had helped to create a place that I would have adored as a child. There were cubby holes for hidden collections waiting to be found by tiny hands, and a story telling area surrounded by a curtain, with twinkling stars in the ceiling above. The
Then it was back to reality as day two got properly underway with a keynote from Graham Cornish, who posed the question “why do we do what we do?”. Refreshingly, Graham did not have a slide show and preferred to just talk to the audience, beginning with a brief history of interlibrary loans. He took us back to a time when libraries collected anything and everything, just in case a reader might need it. Now libraries have neither the space nor budget to do this, we have now adopted a “just in time” model in all aspects of the
The most important thing that I took away from this very interesting session was that walk-in access provision is allowed within a majority of existing licenses. For example the NESLi2 model license allows access to anyone “on the premises”; EBSCO identifies “walk in patrons” as authorized users; and Proquest also identifies “walk in users” in its license. The second most important thing was to get IT involved and on board early! There are a variety of ways you can implement walk in access, but you will need help from the IT department. Now that the University of Wales has walk in access running at a number of campuses, Bronwen Blatchford and her team have produced a Toolkit that other institutions can use, free of charge, as a guide5. Mark Kluzek from King’s College London was up next to discuss a practical guide to e-journal and e-book supply. Again we were looking at licenses in detail and found 4
http://www.researchinfonet.org/wpcontent/uploads/2012/06/Finch-Group-report-FINALVERSION.pdf 5
http://walkinaccesswales.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/wi awreporttoolkit.pdf
that NESLi2 allows for supply of articles from e-journals. This can be in any format, whether printed or secure electronic delivery, however questions can be made over what constitutes SED: should the file be encrypted? Is an email attachment acceptable as you assume only authorized users of the file will have access to that email? The license isn’t exactly clear and I think it depends on your interpretation, but for example, King’s College use OCLC Article Exchange for document supply. Mark then raised the possibility of supplying e-books or chapters of e-books by interlibrary loan. The licenses for most e-books seem to suggest that supply of chapters is fine and in line with fair use copyright. Supplying online access to the whole book could also be possible, as long as the e-book was unavailable to anyone else at that time (in line with traditional loans). However the e-book suppliers have not yet created an easy way to provide access to an e-book purchased by one library to users of another library. I believe this is because they can already make more money through direct rentals using their own platform. In terms of collection development, I see better opportunities in the area of patron-driven acquisition, by directing ILL requests to e-book rentals where possible. David Ball then gave us a very thorough overview of the developments in Open Access research, including a useful comparison between OA published journals and peer-reviewed journals. The latter with it’s closed processes and suspicions of old boys clubs did not compare well to the dynamic possibilities of collaboration, debate and access to datasets that Open Access publishing provides. It all sounded very promising, but unfortunately David had only a question mark next to the implications of all this for interlending. I think we’ll have to wait and see.
Finally, FIL Chair Marie Lancaster wrapped up a very successful conference and announced that next year we’ll be in Edinburgh! Lucy Lambe
SCONUL Access Contacts Conference
The SCONUL Access Annual Meeting at Anglia Ruskin University in Chelmsford was led by Wayne Connelly, member of SCONUL’s shared and Collaborative Service Strategy Group, who discussed the latest developments and discussion on future direction for the access scheme by talking about the upgrades to the SCONUL website. The upgrades highlighted were a direct response to the concerns of SCONUL library representatives who identified the limitations of the current SCONUL website. The initial upgrade would include:
1. An initial search to default to a list of institutions instead of the map. 2. An email notification to be cleared automatically. 3. Automatic registration of dates when applications are received or amended.
4. Applicants records to be extended to include additional fields: user bands; user expiry dates; general notes.
5. Band R functionality to be improved to inform users of a Reference offer where they are not eligible to borrow.
5. Emails to users to feed all appropriate fields through from the application form.
The very unpopular SCONUL Map
The second upgrade would include:
1. New “In progress” status from applicants to be added. 2. Ability to delete pending applications to be added. 3. Functionality to be provided to search the database of applicants by name, institution and ID number. 4. Host libraries to be given access to applicants’ full records.
Proposed next steps to the upgrade would be to use the Access database to check applicant’s eligibility instead of relying on an email for identification which would remove the email’s lack of security as proof of entitlement and ensure that the email response would be simpler and shorter. Future developments would entail creating an archive of host libraries that could add their details to user’s individual records on the Access database when they register which would provide a direct link between home and host libraries on user records and solve the problematic issue of writing blanket emails about defaulting and leaving members, as well as provide detailed management information on use of the Access scheme.
The keynote presentation on Walk-in Access was given by Matthew Brooke, Associate Director at Royal Holloway and project manager for the WATER (Walk-in Access to E-Resources) project. The WATER project and survey carried out on walk-in access arose as part of the Task and Finish Group’s work on Access issues which published the Fair Share report in April 2012. The key findings of the survey highlighted:
1. Increasing expectations amongst students using access schemes that they will be able to use eresources.
2. Access schemes will increasingly lose relevance with the reduction of print and the increasing shift to electronic provision of information if this is not available to students.
students during busy times if PCs are being used by external visitors. Warwick has a limited number of PCs available for walk-in access and pressure on staff time was also reported.
3. The additional training needed for staff to cater for SCONUL Access users, holders of external borrowing cards and members of the public to access a number of electronic resources.
Paula Barbato
4. The obstacles to implementing walk-in access such as surrounding licenses and technical issues to allow access, including identity management. Publishers’ responses to walk-in access varied, whilst most are happy for subscribers to offer access to their content for walk-in access on campus, other publishers are not happy for their content to be supplied to walk-in users because of a perceived loss of sales due to other members of other academic institutions, public libraries and commercial organisations making use of e-resources from one academic institution, allowing other organisations to either cancel or avoid taking out a subscription to the resource. Feedback from the conference highlighted the following perceived barriers such as whether access should be provided on a stand-alone PC, and how to limit access to a subset of resources. Other issues of concern were the additional work surrounding walk-in access and the feasibility of providing quality customer care with decreasing staff levels. Libraries with walk-in access such as SOAS and Warwick both highlighted problems such as excessive downloading and printing by external users. SOAS compared with Warwick have more PCs available for walkin access and there is constant pressure on staff time as well as concerns from
The Library July/August/September 2013 Edited by Nicola Stephenson n.stephenson@gold.ac.uk
Using social media to promote archive use – notes from a talk by Laura Cowdrey, Marketing Department, the National Archives given at the ALISS AGM – May 2013.
The National Archives as an organization has a Social Media Strategy aimed at increasing awareness and use of their collections. Laura talked about the importance of preparation and planning both in knowing your collection and your audience – what social networks are they on? What are you aiming to achieve? What do you want your audience to do once you have their attention? She feels that using social media gives a more personal touch. It is immediate and doesn’t require a budget but does take time! It allows for a more relaxed approach than is usual for Government departments. http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/getinvolved/social-media.htm lists the social media sites that the National Archives
uses. However, when I looked further, only the blog is immediately obvious from the home page.
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/news/7 58.htm
Examples:
Facebook: facebook.com/TheNationalArchives
Blog: My Tommy’s War http://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/blog/tag/ mytommyswar/ . This moving blog has been compiled by National Archives staff recounting the lives of members of their own families who fought in WWI. One entry includes the history of this heartrending painting:
Youth Mourning by Sir George Clausen RA © IWM (Art.IWM ART 4655)
Flickr: World through a lens http://www.flickr.com/photos/nationalarchiv es/collections/72157632921688592/ Images which can be commented on, tagged and reused in the hope of finding out more information about them and the people/events they portray. Laura emphasized the importance of taking care with copyright with images. Twitter: Beyond paper: the digital trail – a live debate.
What has been learnt through their use of social media: •
Using social media takes time and effort.
•
It is necessary to work to build an audience – keep sharing and revisiting content.
•
Good quality content is key.
•
Timing is crucial e.g. launching a Guy Fawkes showcase site just before 5 November!
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Use colleagues, don’t be separate.
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Experiment.
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Be prepared to be challenged.
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Be polite and friendly, not so corporate.
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Importance of search engine optimization.
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Produce guidance for staff.
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Selection of appropriate tags on sites.
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Importance of evaluation and monitoring.
Helen Stephen
SPRUCE Digital Preservation Mash-up, London 2 - 4 July 2013. This was a 3-day ‘mash-up’ style digital preservation workshop held at the Hubworking Centre in the City, quite near the Gherkin. Participants were split into ‘practitioners’ i.e. library/archive type folks, and ‘developers’ i.e. computer programmers/digital specialists. It was quite friendly and informal, but it was made very clear when you signed up that you were there to actively participate, not just to observe!
Practitioners were asked to bring along some materials from their institutions, and some issues or problems for developers to try and work with; the idea being that between us all we could find or create some tools, or at least ideas for tools to build later, to assist with digital curation and preservation. We all brought along a wide range of materials which ranged from scanned photo albums of College life in the early 20th Century (which I took along); digitized computer games from the British Library (that originally came free on cassette on the front of magazines in the 1980s – I’m old enough to have owned some of these!); point cloud data and 3d images from the Tate and Historic Royal Palaces, to batches of various mixed documents, and old adverts from Lloyds bank. Potential concerns included how to correctly identify exactly what you have, how to ensure that what you have remains intact after migration from old storage media to new, how to add new metadata directly into tiff files without damaging them, and how to preserve complex digital objects created in various versions of proprietary software such as InDesign etc. The preservation issues were many and various.
A couple of the images I took with me. This album belongs to the Warden and was brought to special collections to be scanned. The photograph of the Swanky Swotters below dates from around 1908.
After we were matched with developers who had an interest and relevant skills to work on our various preservation issues, we had a chance to talk with them about what we needed, and how they might be able to help us. Whilst the developers were thinking about their part, the practitioners then worked on business planning for digital preservation in their institutions. We looked at benefits analysis, skills gaps, stakeholder analysis and a practice ‘elevator pitch’ - which is what you might say to pitch your ideas to someone important should you happen to be alone in the lift with them for a couple of minutes.
All of this information, along with any solutions that people came up with was to end up on the SPRUCE wiki http://wiki.opflabs.org/display/SPR/SPRUCE+Mashup+L ondon+2 which would have happened a lot faster if the Hubworking wifi had been working for the first day and a half! Luckily there was a plan B, and the documents we were working from were also available offline. This mash-up was also a good way to get to know other people in the field, developers as well as archivists, and to know that many of us have similar concerns about our digital content. There are various tools and guides to help us being developed and shared all the time. The hope is that as new tools that are being developed become more userfriendly, digital preservation actions can be incorporated into more every day work activities without adding too much to our workloads. This will help us manage and keep our valuable digital assets accessible and usable for much longer. The twitter hashtag for this event if you would like to look at what people were saying during and about it is #sprucedp. Rebecca Randall