Scholarly Communication

Our own Discovery channel

In response to user requests for an easy-to-use integrated search option, Northeastern University Libraries are pleased to provide Discovery, a single interface by EBSCOhost that allows several databases and Northeastern’s catalog to be searched at one time. This search tool is a ‘one stop shop’ for users to begin their research. Northeastern will explore the impact of the tool over the course of the academic year. Northeastern University Associate Dean for Scholarly Resources, Amira Aaron, says, “We wanted to provide a more streamlined way for our community to discover information in multiple resources, including our local repositories and open access content. Northeastern students know EBSCOhost and by introducing Discovery we are able to provide additional content and include our catalog, all within a familiar environment which means an easy transition for students, faculty and staff.” Northeastern will work with EBSCO in the next several months to add its digital archive and local digitized content to Discovery, providing even more content from the single search interface – creating a truly custom collection. The ability to pull these additional resources together was another reason for selecting a unified tool. Aaron says, “A unified tool will provide our users with as much content as possible from our discovery service and eliminate multiple silos of information, while improving access to our rich collection of electronic resources.”

University of California vs. Nature Publishing Group

Have you heard about the confrontation between Nature Publishing Group and the University of California faculty and library? If not, or if you want more information, read on! In short, The Nature Publishing Group (NPG) (which publishes Nature along with many other journals) wanted to renegotiate its contract with the University of California system, with a price increase amounting to about 400% (or over one million dollars). The University not only resisted such an increase, but some faculty there have organized a boycott of Nature journals (PDF): no submitting papers, no peer review, no editorial boards, and so on. In other words, withholding their mostly-free labor in the face of this price increase. Since then, NPG has responded and UC/California Digital Library has responded to that response (PDF). (Text borrowed from Steve Lawson, with his permission.) This is a topic that touches on a lot of different aspects of scholarly communication — faculty as authors, the peer review process, journal prices… I welcome discussion, and will post updates as they come. More reading on the subject: Bidwell, Allie. 14 June 2010. UC Librarians Urge Professors To Boycott Publishing Company. The Daily Californian. http://www.dailycal.org/article/109651/uc_librarians_urge_professors_to_boycott_publishin Howard, Jennifer. 8 June 2010. U. of California Tries Just Saying No to Rising Journal Costs. Chronicle of Higher Education. http://0-chronicle.com.ilsprod.lib.neu.edu/article/U-of-California-Tries-Just/65823/ Oder, Norman. 24 June 2010. UC Libraries, Nature Publishing Group in Heated Dispute Over Pricing; Boycott Possible. Library Journal. http://www.libraryjournal.com/lj/home/885271-264/uc_libraries_nature_publishing_group.html.csp Smith, Richard. 10 June 2010. University of California takes on Nature Publishing Group. BMJ Group Blogs. http://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2010/06/10/richard-smith-university-of-california-takes-on-nature-publishing-group/

Summer goal-setting for academics

I like to share interesting and useful blog posts that I find, and this morning I read one that resonated with me because I’m gearing up to set goals for both the summer and the coming year. Chances are, you are, too! In higher ed, we tend to think of summer as “project time,” whether we’re gearing up to start researching for a new article or book, or finally turning our attention to something that’s been pushed to the back burner during the academic year. But so often, it seems like the summer’s over before we know it, and the projects haven’t gotten done. Kerry Ann Rockquemore writes a blog called “Career Advice” for Inside Higher Ed; her post this morning is “Support for Summer Writers: No More Post-Summer Regret.” Rockquemore offers useful advice on planning what she calls SMART goals: Specific, Measurable, Attractive, Realistic and Time-Framed. So, instead of your goal being “work on book,” it might be “complete first draft of chapter 2 by August 1st.” She advises that we look carefully at our calendars for the summer, making sure that time already committed to other things (vacation, conferences, etc.) is blocked out. Only then will we know exactly how much time we can devote to our summer goals and be able to make realistic plans. I know that I definitely work more effectively, and feel more of a sense of accomplishment, when I have a “to-do” list and can cross things off as they’re completed. But I do have a tendency to make those “work on book”-type goals that are vague and have no specific timeline, and now I can see that I’m setting myself up for failure by doing so. So, the first item on my to-do list for today is: “Look at calendar and determine specific schedule for working on summer projects.”

Researchers: Share your views on open access publishing

I received this announcement today on a listserv I belong to. The Study of Open Access Publishing (SOAP) seeks to gain insight into researchers’ views and experiences on open access publishing through your completion of a brief survey. Although sponsored by the European Commission, SOAP is seeking respondents from all parts of the world (and at all stages of their careers). Here is the message they sent:
The SOAP Project (*), funded by the European Commission, would like to announce the release of an online survey to assess researchers’ experiences with open access publishing. This survey aims to inform the most comprehensive analysis of attitudes to open access publishing to date and is seeking views from a wide a range of interested parties. It is primarily aimed at active researchers in public and private organizations, from all fields of the research in the sciences and humanities and focuses on publication of research articles in (open access) peer-reviewed journals. If you would like to contribute to shaping the public discourse on open access, please visit: http://surveymonkey.com/soap_survey_d It should take 10-15 minutes to complete. The survey outcome will be made public and the resulting insights as well as recommendations will be openly shared with the European Commission, publishers, research funding agencies, libraries and researchers. Thanks in advance, the SOAP Project Team info@project-soap.eu (*) Note: The SOAP consortium is coordinated by CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research. It represents key stakeholders in open access, such as publishers BioMed Central, SAGE and Springer; funding agencies (the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council) and libraries (the Max Planck Digital Library of the Max Planck Society). The project runs for two years, from March 2009 to February 2011.

Mechanical Engineering students’ capstone project cited in Wired.com article

On March 9, 2010, the popular website Wired.com published an article titled “Mile-High Mega Kites Could Pull Giant, Floating Power Plants,” by author Alexis Madrigal. Madrigal cited the work of six NU students, and included a link to their capstone project, which had been published in IRis, Northeastern’s digital archive of scholarship. In the past 2 months, their capstone project, “Hydroelectric Power Generator: Technical Design Report,” which the students created in the course MIME1501 in May 2002, has been viewed 350 times by readers of the Wired article. Congratulations to student authors Anthony Chesna, Tony DiBella, Tim Hutchins, Saralyn Kropf, Jeff Lesica, and Jim Mahoney! Want to increase your citation rate? Submit your work to IRis!