European Conference on Information Literacy (ECIL)

Anyone interested in presenting a paper? European Conference on Information Literacy

Organized by the Department of Information Management of Hacettepe University and Department of Information and Communication Sciences of Zagreb University, European Conference on Information Literacy (or ECIL) will take place in Istanbul, Turkey, from 22-25 October 2013.

This is a 'must read' from Eve Gray on Open Access in Africa!

Very interesting piece on Eve's blog:
 "...I have come to think that the green/gold debate is in fact a distraction from dealing with more insidious issues in our research publishing systems. These include the dominance of journals at the expense of other forms of publication; the almost universal adoption of the ISI and its Impact Factor as the basis for recognition and reward; and, most insidious of all, the marginalization of great swathes of global research through the implementation of this commercialized ranking system...." (Eve Gray)

 

Eve will moderate the session on OA and Improving Assessment of Research and Scholarly Publication at the Berlin 10 Conference in November in Stellenbosch (Roelien, Ujula, Debbie & Eileen will be attending this).

N ACCESS AND IMPROVING ASSESSMENT OF RESEARCH AND SCHOLARLY PUBLISHING

List of books banned by governments

List of books banned by governments

 

(Mendeley) Connecting academic research to the outside world

(Worth a read)
"....One of the core ideas behind Mendeley has always been to use the huge amounts of data our users are uploading to make science more open and transparent. The Mendeley Institutional Edition creates a data dashboard on an institutional level: it tells a university exactly which journals are being read by their researchers, which lets librarians optimize their journal subscriptions and provide a better service to their researchers. It also enables the university to track their research output – what journals are their faculty publishing in, and how is this research being taken up in the rest of academia and in the outside world? Moreover, when a university subscribes to the Mendeley Institutional Edition, all of their students and faculty get upgraded to Mendeley premium accounts – we have now started to roll this out at places like Stanford University...."

Helicopter Librarian: Expect the Unexpected

Helicopter Librarians ... hover until the student is prepared for take-off!

Report reveal impacts of open access on libraries

From Research Information: "...Caroline Brazier, director of scholarship and collections at the British Library, also believes that discussion about the implications on OA on libraries is important: ‘Increasing numbers of academic researchers and policy makers in several countries are embracing the idea that the results of publicly funded research should be as widely available as possible. While research librarians have been amongst the strongest advocates of OA models, the implications of these models for research libraries and their future role in supporting the research process are less well understood,’ she said. ‘We must look beyond discussions on the pros and cons of ‘gold’ versus ‘green’ models to fundamental issues such as the future of research collections, changing skillsets and services required to support researchers of the future, at institutional and national levels. We hope this report conveys the urgency and significance of these issues to the wider research community.’"

The Inevitability of Open Access

A disruptive industry?
 This analysis  (from the latest C&RL issue) suggests that Gold OA could account for 50 percent of the scholarly journal articles sometime between 2017 and 2021, and 90 percent of articles as soon as 2020 and more conservatively by 2025.

Library Distributes Peter Suber’s Open Access to New Faculty

 

Library Distributes Peter Suber’s Open Access to New Faculty

According to Peter Suber’s new book Open Access: “When a library must provide access for thousands of faculty and students working on tens of thousands of topics, and when the volume of new works grows explosively every year, price barriers become insurmountable.”

(one would have thought he would have published his book as an open access work!!!!  RUL has it on order)

 

Library subject guides: A case study of evidence-informed library development

Library subject guides: A case study of evidence-informed library development. 

Another topic which could be investigated at RUL?

Core reference competencies

Identifying Core Reference Competencies from an Employers’ Perspective: Implications for Instruction

"....reference in academic libraries today is not the same service it was even just a decade ago....What knowledge, skills, and competencies do current practitioners and hiring managers believe to be valuable for the provision of reference services now and into the future? What areas do managers find lacking or underdeveloped in their new hires? How well do current library science programs prepare students to meet employer expectations for reference positions?

E-books still have a long way to go before librarians and their customers will be satisfied

E-books still have a long way to go before librarians and their customers will be satisfied, reports Tom Wilkie from last month'sSpecial Libraries Association meeting

The e-book may be the future but it is not yet working, according to librarians and scholarly publishers speaking to the annual meeting of the Special Libraries Association in Chicago in late July.

Discovering the Impact of Library Use and Student Performance

I picked up this interesting article in EduCause Review thanks to Brenda's Twitter page! Wish we could similar research at RUL - anyone interested?

• The University of Wollongong Library developed the Library Cube, a tailored database and reporting function that joins library usage data with student data, including demographic and academic performance information.
• Analysis of the resulting data reveals a strong correlation between students' grades and use of information resources the library provides.
• ______________________________________________ 

Google Scholar Metrics

Anne Moon tweeted this - interesting

Google Scholar Metrics

 A very well reputed bibliometrics team of the Granada University, Spain, has carried an study on the flaws that Google Scholar Metrics have, that impede its use for evaluating scientific journals.
Delgado-López-Cózar, Emilio; Cabezas-Clavijo, Álvaro. “Google Scholar Metrics: an unreliable tool for assessing scientific journals”. El profesional de la información, 2012, July-August, v. 21, n. 4, pp. 419-427.

Students Find E-Textbooks ‘Clumsy’ and Don’t Use Their Interactive Features

From CHE
A recent report... shows that many students find the e-textbooks “clumsy” and prefer print.

 

Managing a 21st-Century Library Collection

Some ideas from the conclusion of this article (Managing a 21st-Century Library Collection)

 about to what librarians need be doing to assure the future of libraries:

• work with different players in every aspect of the information supply chain.

• we need to engage our users. 
  
• we need to be out there finding out how they do their research and how they do their work.

•  understanding users is an important prerequisite before we work on engaging users

• we really need to get our resources out to where students do their work

• we need to engage our content providers in conversations about licensing terms and how we should

• we have to be engaged with our system providers, making sure we are not just getting the system we deserve, but actually getting a system that we really need.

The cost of knowledge

The cost of knowledge - editorial in Ergonomics SA, 2012, 24 (1) by Dr Candice Christie - HOD of HKE Dept and editor-in-chief of Ergonomics SA.

Current awareness made easy?

Now this is really something! 
Jean Thomas from NMMU alerted me to this service available at JournalTOCS.  This site freely allows one to set up TOC alerts to selected journals but see this link for what else is on offer (admittedly at a price - but not too expensive for an institution?).  A trial period is available.

"Armed only with a list of some of your users’ email addresses and a list of the particular scholarly journals they are interested in (ones your organisation subscribes to, ones you don’t subscribe to, Open Access journals, hybrid journals to which you do, or don’t subscribe – it doesn’t matter which – it’s up to them, and they can choose to limit as they wish), you can act as a super-admin-user and set up a personalised web and email based scholarly journal Tables of Contents alerting service for them, with ease!"

RULibrary and current technologies?

A useful follow-up to Thandiwe's report-back from the Carnegie Leadership Academy.  Some very pertinent issues are addressed.

As Thandiwe's CALL research report discovered, our users are keen for the Library to use current technologies - especially the whole mobile issue.

Is Google Scholar reliable/valuable?

(article in: Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship, Summer 2012) "...takes a look at reliability factors that go into Google Scholar citation counts, selection of resources, and its commercial partnerships...     ...led to the conclusion that Google Scholar may be useful for initial and supplemental information gathering, but lacks a deeper reliability than other existing services currently provide scholars."

University libraries and the postgraduate student; physical and virtual spaces

University libraries and the postgraduate student; physical and virtual spaces

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Document Information:

Title:	University libraries and the postgraduate student; physical and virtual spaces
Author(s):	Colin Beard, (Freelance Consultant), David Bawden, (City University London)
Citation:	Colin Beard, David Bawden, (2012) "University libraries and the postgraduate student; physical and virtual spaces", New Library World, Vol. 113 Iss: 9/10
Article type:	Research paper
Publisher:	Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Abstract:	Purpose - This study examines the library/information issues affecting graduate students, both those on taught courses and those undertaking research. It focuses specifically on their perceptions of the value to them of physical and digital resources and spaces, and how well their needs were being met. Design/methodology/approach - An online questionnaire survey of students was complemented by a series of face-to-face interviews with library staff. Findings - This group of students are different from undergraduates, whose information behaviour has more often been studied. They require silent study space, are enthusiastic book borrowers, and have limited interest in social media in the library. They have a strong requirement for digital resources and IT support, and are not inclined to ask for assistance from librarians. Research limitations/implications - The study is limited to three English universities, although they are sufficiently varied nature to make the results more widely applicable. Practical implications - It provides evidence for librarians in universities and colleges serving graduate students as to the best form of provision, and for any library seeking to make best use of its space as resources become increasingly digital. Originality/value - It is one of the few studies to examine the information behaviour and needs of advanced students. It contributes to the debate on the future of the library as place in a digital age.