scholarly communication

Redefining “Institutional Repository”: The Quiet Revolution

Earlier this summer, the Chronicle of Higher Education published an eye-catching article on digital repositories, using the University of Nebraska’s outstanding repository as its main example, as well as highlighting IDEALS at the University of Illinois and Harvard’s DASH repository. The Chronicle titled this article “Digital Repositories Foment a Quiet Revolution in Scholarship.” The revolution, we are given to understand, is that institutional repositories (or IRs) are finding their greatest successes in providing access to a previously untapped wealth of knowledge. And it’s a quiet revolution because these resources aren’t necessarily the most flashy — they’re the so-called grey literature (unpublished papers produced by institutes or research centers, conference proceedings, etc.) and the unique materials held by an institution that are not duplicated in the way that traditional library holdings are. An IR can provide global access to materials that might otherwise stay hidden in someone’s file cabinet — that is a revolutionary concept! Here at Northeastern, our Archives and Special Collections department has developed digital collections that spotlight its unique materials. And IRis, our digital archive of Northeastern’s intellectual output, provides access to materials that might otherwise remain unseen. We are actively developing these and other digital library services in order to expand the global reach of our collections. I read this Chronicle article and thought, someday I’d like Northeastern to be highlighted as a shining example of how digital repositories can change the way we gain access to information. So, let’s take on the quiet revolution and make some noise! What kinds of material would you like to see in IRis, in our online archival collections, and in our growing digital library?

Citations, Quotations, Notations…Frustrations

Remember when before EasyBib you actually had to know what citation convention you were using and actually format your citation yourself? If you’re like me, of course you don’t, because we grew up in the computer age. Regardless, citations are a crucial function to the scholarly process, and withholding due credit (not citing your sources) or even citing incorrectly is frowned upon to the extent of expulsion for plagiarism. Some of the new features on EasyBib have made this process even easier by automatically citing sources based on article titles, and giving a much wider range of citation formats and documentation options. Unfortunately, you still have to cite within your actual text manually, a process that is known to be arduous and often time consuming…until now (for those of you who didn’t know about this before reading my blog post). Available through on the Self-Service tab of MyNEU, by clicking into Software Downloads you will find the answer to all things citation related. The program named EndNote, aptly puts an End to all of your Note-ation problems (I try to be funny… it usually never works). Straight from EndNote themselves…

“Millions of researchers, scholarly writers, students and librarians use EndNote to search online bibliographic databases, organize their references, images and PDFs in any language, and create bibliographies and figure lists instantly. Instead of spending hours typing bibliographies, or using index cards to organize their references, they do it the easy way—by using EndNote” (Endnote).

See the citation convention I used there? All thanks to EndNote! Some other cool functions include automatic paper formatting, template extensions, online reference searches, customizable export options, and more. So, while EasyBib may be a great tool for citations, the software provided by Northeastern will make sure you aren’t stuck in Snell Library all night.

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.