Monday, April 30, 2007

State of the State

STATE OF THE STATE: SCHOLARLY COMMUNICATION IN NORTH CAROLINA
APRIL 27, 2007 – ELLIOTT UNIVERSITY CENTER, UNCG, GREENSBORO
SPONSOR: COLLEGE & UNIVERSITY SECTION OF THE NC LIBRARY ASSOCIATION

Scholarly Communications: An Introduction – Rosann Bazirjian, UNCG
· Scholarly journal publishers are charging more for electronic than print, even though cost of creation may be less
· SC needs to be understood not only as a way to solve the serials crisis for libraries, but also as a way to aid dissemination of research
· The promotion & tenure process – requirement of publishing in high impact journals –
perpetuates the continuation of the crisis
· “Author pays” OA models seen as vanity presses
· Plagiarism fears cloud understanding of OA, despite the fact that copyright/IP violations
happen within the traditional publishing structure
· Simple continuation of the existing publishing model is ill-advised as it gives publishers the
right to prohibit use, even by authors themselves
· Institutional repositories (IRs) are part of the solution to the SC crisis; also demonstrate
university’s value, quality to the world at largeIR=capture, collect, preserve

The ABC’s of Scholarly Communicaiton – Cat Saleeby McDowell, UNCG
· Why a crisis?:
o Loss of access to scholarly research literature due to rising prices and subsequent
fewer subscriptions
o Reliance on core publications entrenched in tenure
o Impact factors emphasize the quality of the journal title, NOT the quality of the
articles (assume articles must be good if in certain journals)
o US anti-trust laws lax on publishers, so lots of big fish eating little fish mergers
o Libraries committing more money to fewer publishers
· Open Access (OA)=immediate, free, online, unrestricted
· Catalog OA journals and include titles in subject guides one way to promote
· Although IRs are part of the answer, they should not be undertaken lightly
· Average startup cost of IRs $182,000, mean is $45,000; includes salary of staff, server
cost, learning time, training, etc.
· 9 largest US IRs at institutions in the top 100 colleges/universities in the nation
· Only 13% of IRs’ faculty scholarship (which accounts for only 37% of total) is peer-reviewed
· Bring out the dollar signs when educating administrators
· Target “movers & shakers” among faculty, as well as those serving as editors
· “Sneak” into another meeting to sharing OA/IR information with faculty
· Have workshop on publishing as a whole, with part devoted to OA, for junior faculty, post
docs, grad students
· Common resistance to OA/IR:
o Invested in traditional publishing model (tenure)
o Peer-review concerns
o Journal impact factors
o Disciplinary vs. institutional repositories (faculty more committed to subject than
institution)
o Plagiarism
· Research showed that if IRs went live without 100-200 items, it was hard to grow and
prove need

Implementing an Institutional Repository: Decisions and Experiences – Stephen Westman, UNCC
· Building an IR is a large-scale, complex project
· Define what you mean by “stewardship” of digital materials at the beginning
· Determine type of structure desired: document management system vs. scholarly
repository
· Plan, plan, plan!
· Make sure you have explicit buy-in and commitment for ongoing support
· Do not underestimate importance of marketing and PR
· Keep project faculty-focused; let them feel ownership
· Tie to faculty benefits (what’s in it for them?):
o Stable, long-term access and preservation with permanent URL
o Increased circulation, hence increased citations (show how many times item has
been downloaded) o Ability to do full text searching
· Have an elevator speech prepared
· Communicate early and often (should be two-way)
· Future migration costs need to be thought about, even thought this likely won’t be an issue
in near future

Care about Your Copyrights – Peggy Hoon, NCSU
· Technologies have forced copyright onto center stage
· Does institution have policy that addresses copyright ownership? Most allow faculty to retain copyright
· Intellectual property (IP) is an individual’s most valuable asset; for researchers, this is
what they live and train for
· Copyright holder is in the driver’s seat with respect to how work can be accessed and used

· Copyright transfers must be in writing and signed
· Copyright is actually a bundle of rights:
o Reproduction
o Modification
o Distribution
o Public performance
o Public display
o Public performance of sound recording by digital transmission
· If authors sign away all copyright, they will likely experience future limitations

· Authors can:
o Completely transfer copyright
o Transfer but retain some rights for self and/or institution
o Keep copyright and only license to other entity
· Advice has shifted from “keep your copyright” to “keep the rights you need, as many as
you can, for as many people as you can”
o Less threatening for publishers
o Faculty not responsible for granting use permissions; publishers have copyright and
therefore field such requests
· Don’t be afraid to negotiate – the publisher is obviously interested in the work


Panel Discussion – Rebecca Kemp, UNCW (moderator); Allan Scherlen, ASU; Evelyn Council, FSU; Kate McGraw, UNC; Kevin Smith, Duke; Peter Fritzler, UNCW
· Author addendum, even if pushed back, leave open possibility for negotiation
· Addendum at least get authors to understand copyright issues; way to get faculty – and
publishers – thinking about copyright and future use
· UNC established OA fund to supply authors with money to pay publishing fees; not highly
used but good marketing tool; excludes authors whose grant award provides publication fee coverage
· “Squeeky wheel”, “under the table” publishing agreements brought out by publishers when
authors push for rights retention
· Grad students a better audience than faculty for OA, IR, copyright retention
· UNCW librarians targeted NIH researchers to jointly learn how PubMed Central works
· Easier inroads with individual, small groups, departmental groups of faculty
· Highlight early adopters
· Start at individual-level interest (appeal point)
· IR provides snapshot of what the institution can offer to the world
· Establish identity for IR – let this be a choice that is made, not one dictated by what
happens as it evolves

Thursday, April 26, 2007

Expanding publishing impact

Publishing choices: Know your rights and expand your impact!
April 25, 2007
UNC Health Sciences Library, Chapel Hill, NC
Guest speaker: Heather Joseph, Director, SPARC
Panelists: Sarah Michalak (moderator), Deborah Gerhardt, Julia Cleaver, Brad Hemminger
  • Open Access (OA) should be understood as a vision, not a specific model
  • Goal of OA is to lift barriers to both access and use
  • In paper world, distribution was a value added service of journal publishers; not so in digital world
  • Of great value to researchers is OA's advantage in research impact: wider audience=more impact
  • OA not only about seeing and reading, but about using articles/research in new ways
  • Number of OA journals (in DOAJ) rose 25% in 2006!
  • When launching an institutional repository, must consider what an OA repository means for the campus community, institution...
  • Copyright is "showered" on authors as they write and is theirs alone until they sign it away
  • $19billion publishing industry in 2006
  • Dissemination is becoming understood as an essential, inseparable process of research
  • Copyright is a default in our government; even without filing for official registration, authors have very strong rights/protections, including the right to make derivatives
  • T. Brody, Southampton Univ., has shown that self-archiving positively increases citation impact (50-250%)
  • "You don't ask, you don't get": authors need to think about how they might want to use their work in the future and tell publishers upfront
  • Although UNC (and several other institutions) created an institutional author addendum for authors to attach when signing publishing contracts to only share non-exclusive copy right with publishers, there is a risk that if the market is flooded with too many variations, publishers will reject them en masse, simply because it is too much work sifting through them all; a better route will likely be to either stipulate upfront what rights the author wishes to retain, or to use generic addendum such as that provided by SPARC or the Science Commons Scholar's Copyright Addendum Engine

Wednesday, April 4, 2007

Keynote Sessions

Opening Session Keynote, Thursday March 29: Michael Eric Dyson
· Librarians potentially have greater responsibility in enhancing students’ education than classroom teachers might because we are a constant figure from one academic year to the next
· Librarians are not just preservers of information, we are liberators of information; we must disseminate information when, where, and to whom it is needed
· We need to embrace our culture as it is and teach from the vantage point of legitimacy and inclusion: Shakespeare alongside Tupac; rappers are highly literate individuals (have to be in order to string together elaborate lyrics that not only make sense but rhyme!) and if they are who our students will connect to, use them as examples
· Recognize that it isn’t a lack of desire to learn, so much as a lack of accessibility

Keynote Luncheon, Friday March 30: John Waters
While much of John Waters’ speech reflected his classically off-color style (as it should), and perhaps shouldn’t be shared on our professional blog, I’m noting the highlights here – but I’ll be happy to give you a full recap if you like!
· Libraries are all about free, but perhaps we should change that mantra: make people pay to get *out* of the library
· We have to make books cool again; translate classics into Ebonics if that will connect with young people
· It’s impossible to commit a crime while reading a book: promoting literacy/libraries might curb violence
· Be provocative and you’ll attract new, younger users

Closing Session Keynote, Sunday April 1: Nina Totenberg
· The role of reporters getting to and disseminating information in our democratic society is changing
· The ship of State is the only one that leaks from the top
· Government’s job is to keep secrets; journalists’ job is to find them out
· Leaking information cannot be a one way street that only benefits the government; without leaks, the public wouldn’t know about a lot of important events/issues in history (Watergate)
· In life, not everyone is a diligent as librarians
· Fears that people only read what they agree with because the amount of information that we should be reading growing exponentially
· Loss of exposure to articles you *think* you aren’t interested in reading is the greatest detriment to reading newspapers online and not by physically turning pages

Tuesday, April 3, 2007

Cruise to Success (Panel Session)

Cruise to Success: How to Steer Your Way through the Murky Waters of Marketing Your Library
Teresa DeLoach, Reference Librarian, University of Texas-Dallas; Loreen Phillips, Head of Information Literacy Services and Outreach, University of Texas-Dallas

· Marketing activities fall under the umbrella of instruction, outreach and reference
· Libraries need to always remind their campus communities of what we do
· Marketing is communication, relationship nurturing
· Two main kinds of marketing:
Covert – simple brand recognition
Overt – want people to remember product and services, not merely logo
· Successful marketing strategies begin by identifying the basic thing we want our users to remember
· No one else will market the library except us
· SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) helpful in understanding environment/culture, but also generates data useful in funding requests
· Use logo, phone number/contact info on anything you distribute to faculty, staff and students
· Pencils, pens and highlighters splash library name all over campus quickly and easily
· Keep statistics for every marketing endeavor (i.e., how many pens were distributed/taken)
· Distribute different bookmarks highlighting different things from general (hours, URL, etc.) to specific (collections, services) to directly applicable (LC,NLM classification)
· Xyron machine (popular in scrapbooking) can be used for making bookmarks, magnets, postcards and business cards in house with less expense
· Catchy phrases, big words grab attention; share details in smaller font (FREE RESEARCH PAPER help)
· Create posters in various styles, advertising various library services, events
· Use table tends within library to advertise new products (databases, journals, bibliographic management software, PDA resource, etc.)
· Use business card-size informational ads at public service desks for distribution alongside bookmarks
· Stock branded pens, pencils, erasers, highlighters at public service desks for distribution to students without expectation of return
· Have different style pens for different user groups: nicer pens for faculty and staff, cheap ones for students
· Try different things; even if they don’t work, at least you tried
· Don’t market only when you have specific marketing events (i.e., info fairs), but on a regular basis; hand out bookmarks, pens, highlighters, etc. to classes you teach

From Soup to Nuts (Invited Paper)

From Soup to Nuts: Copyright, Social Networking and Electronic Surveillance
Tracy Mitrano, Director of IT Policy and of Computer Policy and Law Program, Cornell University

· Copyright law and technology out of sync with current business models and social norms


· Copyright is negatively impacting e-reserve materials; people are scared/confused about provision rights so they back off providing access; even if access is behind authentication, that doesn’t automatically protect against copyright violation; must adhere to TEACH Act

· Recommends creating e-reserves fair use checklist and faculty sign-off with input into course management systems; due diligence statements

· With regard to DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) violations, if the institution is merely a conduit (student uses personal computer connected to campus network to illegally procure/share content with an independent computer elsewhere on the internet), not required to act on DMCA notices

· Infringement violations being called piracy, theft is minimizing seriousness of infringement (min. $750 fine per incident; adds up quickly)

· Settlement letters placing institutions in pinched position when asked to forward letters to student violators; some institutions (including Cornell) forward to students believing knowledge of and accountability for such violations contributes to students’ moral/ethical development

· Has intellectual property become the business model instead of the product in the entertainment arena? (settlement letters perfect example)

· Higher ed institutions are likely being targeted for ISP-identified violations because the RIAA knows that we don’t have Congressional defenders to stop settlement letters/DMCA notices, and institutions actually care about students and missions for betterment of society

While the rest of her presentation on social networking and electronic surveillance was fascinating, it has very little applicability to our library, so I'm electing not to include my notes. If you'd like to read them, however, I'll be happy to share!

Keeping in the Flow (Forum)

Keeping Libraries in the Flow: Being Relevant in the World of Amazoogle
Richard Dougherty, Dougherty and Associates; Gary Pitkin, Dean of Libraries and Professor, University of Northern Colorado; Steven Bell, Philadelphia University; Wendy Lougee, University Librarian, University of Minnesota; Michelle Jacobs, Instruction Librarian, University of California-Merced

What is driving change in libraries today?
· Technology
· User expectations
· Accountability
· Lack of money
· Changing curriculum
· Generational shift
· Changing demographics
· Online education
· Globalization
· Space constraints
· Information competitors
· Assessment
· Administrative ignorance

When campus administrators refer to libraries as black holes, sink holes, pits, etc. it denotes a problem, but it’s OUR problem, not the administrations’; must ensure that library’s mission is/becomes critical to the mission of the institution as a whole

Must build stakeholders on campus by becoming full partner in teaching and learning process; can no longer be viewed merely as support; realize that it takes time to change our role/perception with faculty, administration

Meeting needs, expectations of legacy faculty is a challenge and how you balance their demands/needs/wants with those of younger faculty depends on campus culture and power of faculty; can work to improve culture by assisting faculty in bridging the technology divide

Academic libraries play a key role in retention of students; must be structured so that we can keep pace with [possibly lead?] change

Must be committed to:
· Keeping up
· Being open to change
· Integrating ourselves in teaching and learning
· Finding what is broken and fixing it (we can provide innovative services for our users, but if the circulation policy is too restrictive, then we still aren’t meeting their needs)

Three trends we should pay attention to:
· Privatization
· Emphasis on learning experience
· Shifting focus from product to process

Embracing technology, working collaboratively, and interacting with diverse people are three necessary elements of students’ learning experience for the 21st century; libraries need to ensure that we serve/meet these needs

Eliminate library jargon: compare ILL to Amazon (find what you want, wait a couple of days, delivered directly to you); compare Google results (50 good ones) to those gleaned from library database (3000 good ones): note that while running a Google search might be faster, you save time in the long run because you don’t have to sift for authoritative results in library databases; show students how to play in our world, only don’t tell them that it’s our world!

One presenter’s suggestion [with which I take objection]: Make sure you do things that are both engaging and time-saving, such as eliminate the physical reference desk in favor of email/IM/text messaging for quick answer questions, and scheduled office hours and appointments for in-depth reference questions, which gives students more real world experience when we don’t simply drop everything to help them when they walk in the door
[Ahem, meaning not at their point-of-need, not when we’re needed most, we don’t want to actually do this?! To think, I thought librarianship was a SERVICE profession...]

Monday, April 2, 2007

Working from the Grass Roots (Panel Session)

Working from the Grass Roots: Best Practices in Campus Scholarly Communications Programs
John Ober, Director, Policy, Planning, and Outreach, Office of Scholarly Communication; Teresa Fishel, Library Director, Macalester College; Carolyn Mills, Reference Librarian and Biology Liaison, University of Connecticut; John Saylor, Director of the Engineering and Computer Science Library, Cornell University

· Scholarly communications programs must be seen as strategic

· Faculty are part of the problem, therefore they have a role as part of the solution

· Engage faculty in planning SC programs, particularly when crafting the missions statement

· Faculty spokesperson are necessary key players

· Might have greater success by focusing on younger faculty (newly tenured or tenure track), as they are generally more collaborative when sharing work, more comfortable with technology, more open to change (less tradition bound), and will be around longer than senior faculty (longevity is key point, as it will likely take 10 years for SC programs to see full fruition of mission)

· Hold one-on-one conversations to increase awareness and understanding of issues; smaller groups or one-on-one work well because it’s hard to get faculty, grad students to big programs

· Develop an “elevator speech” or sound-bite; possibly tailor messages for different ranks, departments

· Discern faculty knowledge of SC issues, feelings on FRPAA (Federal Research Public Access Act), author rights, student access to research

· Realize that even if you don’t have converts, you’ve at least had conversation

· Create a university-wide council of provosts, faculty, librarians, technologists, administrators, and students

· Complete system-wide environmental scan based on ACRL/Scholarly Communications Institute “Faculty Activism Assessment Instrument”

· Build base of institutional repository users (takes time!) to recruit others; individual users turn into champions

· Use liaisons to reach departments; remember, though, that liaisons may be uncomfortable taking on much SC promotion/education responsibility, as these are big issues with which they may not have enough personal familiarity to be able to speak knowledgeably in conversations with faculty

· Author rights campaigns great way to spread word around campus; brochures enable more rapid, far-reaching dissemination of key information; grad students especially receptive audience on copyright

Online Instruction (Panel Session)

Reflecting on Online Instruction and Learning: Best Practices and Trends in Online Information Literacy Tutorials
Terrence B. Bennett, Business and Economics Librarian, The College of New Jersey Library; Melissa K. Prescott, Reference and Instruction Librarian, St. Cloud State University; Jennifer Sharkey, Associate Professor of Library Science, Purdue University Libraries

Best practices for online information literacy tutorials:
· Relate to specific course/assignment
· Incorporate active and collaborative learning
· Present information in multiple ways
· Have transferable concepts
· State clear objectives
· Give option to ask a librarian for help

Current design trends:
· Shorter, modular, discreet
· Point of need
· Increased interactivity
· Assessment
· Gaming aspects (representative student avatars)

Trends in use, presentation, marketing:
· Course requirements
· Direct links from portals or course management systems (Blackboard, WebCT)
· Distance learning
· Specific groups
· Point of need

ARCS model of motivational design:
· Attention – acquire and sustain
· Relevance – apply to personal needs
· Confidence – develop appropriate expectancy for success
· Satisfaction – apply skills outside learning environment

Professors who mandate tutorial completion add credibility to tutorials that librarians can’t hope to have because we don’t assign students’ grades

Discreet learning objects teach literacy at point of need while assisting students in completing tasks (ex: tutorial walks students through search process from library home page search interface)

Use the four learning styles to construct effective teaching practices:
· Auditory – listening, hearing
· Reading/writing – processing text
· Kinesthetic – moving, doing, touching
· Visual – seeing, observing

While most people respond using all four learning styles, there is usually one that is predominant

When designing tutorials, incorporate elements for each learning style, spread throughout the tutorial; when possible, blend the elements to support more than one style at a time (ex: voice over narration, task completion, video/animation, text, charts, etc.)

The goals and objectives of the tutorial should ensure inclusion of all learning styles

Assessment in online learning is the same as in face-to-face instruction:
· Tests student learning
· Assesses effectiveness
· Verifies attendance/completion
· Gathers usage data

Assessment can drive backwards design: technology can make formative assessment (reinforcing the learning process) more interesting, more relevant, more interactive (ex: short quiz mid-tutorial); summative assessment (end of tutorial) may be less effective due to limitations of technology

Tutorial design ideas stemming from assessment components:
· Immediate scoring and feedback on wrong answers
· Opportunity for user-to-user feedback (ex: noting particularly helpful/applicable section)
· Ability to assess which modules are and are not read important for future planning

Mashups & Subject Searching (Contributed Papers)

Library Mashups for the Virtual Campus: Using Web 2.0 Tools for Current Awareness
Adriene Lim, Systems Librarian/Assistant Professor, Portland State University; Linda Absher, Humanities Librarian, Portland State University; Kerry Wu, Business Librarian/Assistant Professor, Portland State University


Portland State University Library has designed beta “Topic Watch” pages using HTML, JavaScript, AJAX, CSS to create mashups of relevant information sources

Uses RSS feeds organized by topic (news, podcasts, etc.), provides front page multisearch/federated search option powered by SerialsSolutions’ 360Search (formerly Central Search), and employs tags from sites such as Del.icio.us to direct students to relevant websites

Includes new books section with title links to OPAC record

Mouse-over balloons give further information on title of interest

In podcast section, play buttons are incorporated in interface, and automatically open users’ media player

Although the rest of the information fed through the Topic Watch page is freely available, there is a small box alerting users that access to multisearch results require University username/password for access; search results display with icons (similar to those found in PubMed) linking students to institutional holdings

Wanted to include other APIs such as YouTube, but elected not to due to copyright concerns

Current concerns include lack of customization/personalization; no keyword filtering; few licensed databases offer RSS; possible copyright violations; non-Romanized characters displaying incorrectly

Topic Watch not just for students: many faculty don’t have time to subscribe to RSS, even if they know what it is, so these pages eliminate their need to do this CA work individually

Eventually the librarians hope to include links to webinars and videocasts; flag already read items; and share framework & scripts with other libraries using a Creative Commons license

Subject Search Disconnect: Or, How Do Our Users Want to Search for Subject Information
Margaret Mellinger, Assistant Professor, Oregon State University; Jane Nichols, Social Sciences/Humanities Librarian, Oregon State University


Students don’t really connect with libraries; this disconnect isn’t new but exacerbated by the internet

Historically, libraries have tried to connect users to information using taxonomies, pathfinders, and browse lists

Unfortunately, these methods are as incoherent as a building without doors

Visual search and tag clouds are new methods being used by libraries to make connections within subject searching

When confronted with a long list of database options, students (who want & expect a single search interface) can be overwhelmed, as they feel they shouldn’t have to know both where and what to search

Thus, students often choose familiars databases first, be it Google or ProQuest, even if it doesn’t best match subject (I think students and staff do that here with PubMed; not only is it the default database [with good reason], but it also offers a single search box right on the front page!!)

Common search features that, thanks to Google and Yahoo!, students want/expect include: short phrase natural language searching, no Boolean necessary, spell check, “Did you mean...?”, suggested terms, and relevancy-ranked results

The Reference Question: Iceland or Greenland? (Panel Session)

The Reference Question—Where Has Reference Been, Where is Reference Going?
James Rettig, University Librarian, University of Richmond; Jerry Campbell, President, Claremont School of Theology; William Miller, Director of Libraries, Florida Atlantic University; Brian Matthews, Public Services Librarian, Georgia Institute of Technology

Before the web, libraries had a monopoly on information, and reference librarians sat at the top with wizard-like status in our ability to discern students’ information needs. However the changing information landscape has resulted in a loss of control for librarians. To a great extent this disintermediation has been done to us, not by us. As such, we need to step back and see the dimensions of what we are trying to accomplish, and be clear not only about what we are doing but why. The mission has become more important than the means.

Our established practices are comfort zones that we do not want to abandon, but comfort zones make us slow to change, therefore we need to step out and explore new methods of service without being afraid of failure. Experimenting with disruptive technologies eventually leads to the adoption of new habits of practice in reference service provision.

Ultimately we must decide: what kind of Vikings are we? Are we going to survive in the newly discovered Iceland because we are willing to adapt our old practices to live in the new environment, or are we going to die out in Greenland because we refuse to change, implementing our time-honored methods of subsistence in the new, different, somewhat inhospitable world? Are we going to be creative and innovative? Are we going to eat fish?