Friday, November 4, 2011
The physical book is certainly not dead!
Those naysayers who say the physical book is dead should take a look at October’s top 10 most expensive sales on AbeBooks. The combined value of the top 10 sales exceeds $98,000 and an $11,000 signed first edition of A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway didn’t even crack the top three.
Standards for Libraries in Higher Education
Approved by the Association of College and Research Libraries (USA) Board of Directors, October 2011
Thursday, November 3, 2011
The Ethical Aspects of Research Methods
Are you interested in learning more about the ethical aspects of research methods?
Important - Google Retires The + Search Command
You can tell Google exactly what you want more consistent by expanding the functionality of the quotation marks operator. In addition to using this operator to search for an exact phrase, you can now add quotation marks around a single word to tell Google to match that word precisely. So, if in the past you would have searched for [magazine +latina], you should now search for [magazine "latina"
ResourceShelf
Countless high-quality, free resources are available on the web, including databases, lists and rankings, real-time sources, and multimedia.
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Another view on open access!!
Came across this article :
"Open access to journals increases readership but not citations, study says"
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/April11/OpenAccess.html
R2RC Launches New Open Publishing Guide for Students
The Right to Research Coalition has announced a new student guide to publishing openly, entitled “Optimize Your Publishing, Maximize Your Impact.” This new resource presents students with the ways in which they can make their research openly available for the widest possible readership and lays out the benefits of doing so – both as authors and as readers. How do you know where to submit your manuscript? What are the factors that go into deciding the most appropriate publication outlet? Which journal will give your article the widest audience? Where to publish is too important of a decision to put off until the end of the research process.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
What It Takes To Become A Scholar: helping students scale the taxonomy
Something interesting from "The ubiquitous librarian" blog.
The academic librarian and the academe
Purpose: This paper aims to examine the increased lack of clarity about the professional role of academic librarians, and where the future lies in the academic environment during this period of fast information environment change. . Originality/value: The paper reveals that change is happening in a new, increasingly competitive information environment in which the academic library is no longer necessarily the conventional resource of first choice for the academe it exists to serve.
Open Access Doubts
Open Access advocates have articulated at least five goals for institutional repositories: (1) release hidden information, (2) rein in journal prices, (3) archive an institution’s scholarly record, (4) enable fast research communication, and (5) provide free access to author-formatted articles - four remaining goals, all related to scholarly journals, are more problematic
SHERPA/RoMEO publishers by country
Useful info about SA publishers policies - relevant in terms of deposition of articles in Institutional Repositories
Publisher copyright policies & self-archiving
SHERPA/RoMEO provides a summary of permissions that are normally given as part of each publisher's copyright transfer agreement.Sabinet products advisory meeting 19-20 October Metadata and Cataloguing Group
SABINET PRODUCTS ADVISORY MEETING: 19-20 OCTOBER 2011 DRAFT NOTES BY DESIREE MINNAAR (NMMU)
19 October: Session 1
General welcome and introduction by Sabinet staff
· Sabinet currently has 55 clients in 11 African counties; 58 clients in 18 countries outside of Africa (eg Finland)
· Robert Moropa is the current OCLC EMEA Regional Council representative
· Sabinet will shortly be demo-ing the new Reference platform (which will replace the current Online Reference)
· WorldCat Local has been chosen as the reference platform by many academic libraries, and can be linked to ILL system. It is compatible with III, Aylif, Dynex, etc., but there are other systems with which it is not compatible, and for this reason Sabinet have developed a new Reference platform. Looks similar to the new Legal platform, and SA e-publications will be available on this new platform. [New platform’s colour is blue] – if you wish to test the new platform, contact Sabinet.
The value of your SabiCat subscription
· By using WorldCat/Connextion – have access to 72,000 libraries in 170 countries, representing 470 dialects
· Bibliographic Record Notification Service: Your library sets up a profile, and when any record is upgraded on WorldCat you will be sent a notification of this.
· WorldCat Cataloguing Partners: If you buy books from a vendor (eg Blackwells) then the vendor notifies OCLC and a MARC records is sent to you.
· Reclamation
· WorldCat Selection: (need additional subscription for this service). Receive notification of new books coming into WorldCat, so you won’t need to go to each vendor to look for titles. Receive Marc records with your purchase, and holdings added automatically to OCLC.
· Collection analysis: (Additional subscription). Analyses your library collection. Can compare with other institutions, and can see where you are the only holder of a title.
· WorldCat Knowledge base: Information about your electronic subscriptions
· Digital gateway: Uploading of metadata to WorldCat
· Synchronization gateway: New records uploaded in real time
· Quality:
o GLIMIR project. This is the FRBR-ization of WorldCat. Groups similar records, and gives them a unique identifier
o Enrichment of bib records by TOC, article records
o Coming soon – automated headings control
· WorlCat registry: Free service – information about your institution (URL, postal address, contact details, etc,etc. Use SabiCat codes)
· Request: 230 participating libraries. Resource sharing for ILL, linked to the British library.
· African Journal Archive: Gywneth Crothall is the project manager.
o Retrospective project, going back 10 years
o African scholarly research – Carnegie funds. Carnegie specifies that journals must be in English/Commonwealth countries.
o Open access
o Focus areas are Social sciences and humanities, Sciences, Interdisciplinary journals.
o 124 journals have been sourced
o 58 in negotiation process
o Have published 98 journals titles
o Is also harvested by WorldCat Local
Systems and digitization: (Pierre Malan)
· Currently the digitization team have a project running at Unisa, digitizing rare materials in their Archive
· Systems – Amlib, Koha, Contentdm. Online full-text publications.
· SA e-publications will keep growing. 318 titles at present.
Access:
· Provide metadata to OCLC, EBSCO, ExLibris, content information, III CASE, WorldCat knowledge base
Session 2: Groups discussions
Metadata and Cataloguing Group:
Agenda:
1. WorldCat quality report
2. Issues regarding RDA
3. Reclamation projects, including W/Cat Local and holdings
4. OCLC W/Cat quality survey
5. Feedback from OCLC’s DDC EPC (Editorial Policy Committee) meeting in June – Welna van Eeden
6. Ideas for potential new services
1. WorldCat quality report (http://www.oclc.org/uk/en/reports/worldcatquality/defaults.htm). Background- there are two sections to OCLC:- WorldCat.org and WorldCat (Cataloguing). The report looks at the needs of and usage by end-users (find and obtain documents) and librarians, who want to carry out our work by accessing cataloguing data. Duplicate records on WorldCat is a big issue at the moment - duplicates are tolerated by end-users, but not by librarians!
Factors influencing WorldCat quality:
o New data entering into WorldCat due to agreements with non-English speaking countries
o Loading of records from Vendors (1.59% of records on WorldCat are vendor records) – problematic for matching/merging records
o Expert Community - libraries with enhanced status can upgrade bib records (but this can also create problems)
o DDR (Duplicate Detection and Resolution software) run in 1991, when 1,6 million duplicate records were deleted/merged. In 2010 DDR run again, 5,1 million duplicates found. As at April 2011 7,5 million duplicates removed.
o Parallel records created due to different languages – previously these were merged, but now they are not
o Reproductions and reprints – Librarians and end-users see this differently; end-users not bothered, but librarians are
o Holdings are scattered – OCLC used to connect various editions of a work, not anymore.
o FRBR
o GLIMIR – Global Library Manifestation Identifier: (began in 2009). Common identifier makes it easier to cluster various records together. Improves linking back to your local catalog. Increases accuracy of FRBR clustering in WorldCat “work sets”. Improves visibility of significant differences among manifestations within “work sets”, e.g. orginal vs revisions, translations, etc. Enables enriched content sharing. Supporting authoritative WorldCat statistics.
o Main benefits of GLIMIR: FRBR records. Improved clustering of holdings information.
o WorldCat will be GLIMIR-ised, starting beginning of 2012. GLIMIR clusters will also be included in Connexion in 2012
Scheduled activities for WorldCat for 2012:
· Repeat of WC quality survey
· Further enhanced DDR program
· Reduce missing/broken links to library catalogues
· Resolve issue with sparse Vendor records – this was good news for Catalogers!
· Link and update selected headings to LC name and subject authority files
· Enrich WorldCat records with summaries, TOC, call numbers and other enhanced data
· Provide tool set for quality activities in WorldCat Registry
· Continuous enhancement of WC quality
2.RDA
· RDA Toolkit Website – Blog (http://www.rdatoolkit.org/blog)
· OCLC has implemented the initial MARC RDA changes
· Connexion: 1 Nov deadline for version 2.3, to take advantages of new links (e.g. RDA Toolkit link] but there was an email sent out by Sabinet a few weeks ago saying that we don’t have to upgrade to 2.3, can wait for next year for version 2.4. [Version 2.3 can be problematic- Windows 7, 64-bit machines, .NET must be the correct version].
Email from Sabinet:
OCLC previously announced that the date for end of life of Connexion client versions 2.10 and 2.20 is November 1, 2011. Version 2.40 of the client is planned to be released in March-May of 2012.
To avoid multiple upgrades within a short period of time, OCLC will not require you to upgrade to version 2.30 in November 2011, as previously announced. You can continue to use 2.10, 2.20, or 2.30 until 3-6 months after version 2.40 is released. The exact date for upgrade to version 2.40 will be announced at a later time.
Feel free to upgrade to version 2.30 any time if you would like to take advantage of any of the new features it provides.
· Tienie de Klerk: Told members about the email she had received from Robert Maxwell inviting South Africa to apply for representation on the Joint Steering Committee of RDA. Meeting decided for Tienie to write to JSC telling that South Africa would like to join the JSC, and then take it from there as to who to nominate to be the representative
· She also mentioned the Handbook on RDA written by Maxwell, which is good to have
· South African RDA Steering committee: Nominations forms sent to many cataloguing agencies and from these a group of 11 reps (Library Schools, Sabinet, Provincial Libraries, Igbis, Sanlic, National Library, Chelsa, and Special Libraries) have been selected, as well as the 9 trainers from the RDA lecture series in 2009.
· I did speak to Tienie about the lack of representation from the Eastern Cape, and she said she is aware of this gap, and will keep it in mind.
· RDA’s earliest adoption internationally is 2013. Currently RDA only complies with 5 out of 12 criteria for suitable implementation.
Discussion continued on Day 2.
Question 1. Who is on the Steering Committee to represent Cataloguers?
Question 2: Size of the steering committee – currently 11, should it be more?
Current members include: Karin de Jager, Noni van Wyk (Chelsa), Elita (Sabinet), Helena Snyman (School libraries), Annette Ingram, Anna Weiman (Special libraries), Nikki Bosman (SANB)
20 October:
3. DDC and EPC meeting – Welna van Eeden (her term of office ends in January 2012)
Feedback from the DDC Editorial Policy Meeting (EPC) 134, 8-10 June 2011, on DDC 23.
[DDC 23 can be ordered through Sabinet, with a small discount]
DDC EPC is a 10 member International Board (US, UK, Canada, Australia, South Africa). Works closely with DDC editors, review DDC ever 7 years. Editorial work on DDC system is performed under agreement between Library of Congress and OCLC. Proposals are forwarded to the EPC for review and recommended action. Nothing goes into the new edition without approval from the EPC.
Changes include: Elimination of dual headings. Behind the scenes: distribution format moved to MARC XML
Dewey summaries have been translated into Afrikaans.
Abridged edition 15 published late 2012.
Welna’s email: veedeniw@gmail.com
4. Reclamation projects:
5 institutions completed the project, several are in the process, WITS due to start. It is a must if going for WorldCat Local.
[Can suppress the REQUEST button on WorldCat Local]
5. OCLC WorldCat Data survey
Request to complete the survey
6. OTHER
Training: Liasa/Igbis received grant of R10 million from Carnegie – but what has happened to this and previous grants?
Suggestion to Sabinet to compile a database of retired catalogers, for consultation when needing cataloguers for specific projects
Report back from other 2 groups
InterLibrary loans group
· New Request interface. Want to make passwords for end users easier.
· Ability of users to update their own users on their side
· Management of overdue notices (courier turnaround time)
· Discussion around unmediated vs mediated ILL requests – mediated preferred
· Pre-requests e.g. branches libraries sending requests to ILL
· Additional supplies?
· Copyright m- need to pay attention to this. This has been built into the new system. Sabinet compiles agreement with the libraries
· Courier services – need agreements to make these services cheaper and more reliable
· Ideas for potential services: E-Resources should also be made visible for loan
Reference group
· New Reference platform
· Will have a similar roadshow as the one for the new Legal platform
· Need for ebooks (textbooks), but publishers don’t see this as an economic option
Conclusion:
Sabinet staff thanked all members for their attendance and contribution to discussions.
Monday, October 31, 2011
ANFASA: The Academic and Non-Fiction Authors' Association of South Africa
Sabinet Library Product Advisory Board 2011 Presentations and photographs
Held on 19th and 20th Oct 2011 at Sabinet offices in Centurion, Gauteng
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