Online Catalogue and Repository Interoperability report

I’ve just finished reading the OCRIS final report, a weighty 74 page document that looks at the interaction (or as it transpires lack thereof) between HE IRs and OPACs.  I can’t say from reading the report that this conclusion shocked me, I can only think off hand of a couple of institutions where there have been any significant moves towards this.  That said the study comes at a rather useful time for us here at Leicester, as we look at how to make the LRA interact with more systems with a mind not only to enhancing data exchange, but also to make the information within the repository more readily discoverable.

Some highlights that caught my eye

• p17/8 System Overview: An overview of library OPAC and IR systems in the UK.  A useful set of quick reference tables that I’ll be referring back to in the future I suspect.
• p25 Services: Those currently supported by IRs.  If anything this is a handy tick list to spot if there are any holes/opportunities in activities we are running at Leicester
• p31  Vertical searching: I’d not come across the phrase really before, but the idea of segmenting search discovery certainly sounds interesting.  I’ll be watching out for more on this in the coming year.
• p52 WebBridge: We’ve a links resolver here that we’re looking at linking in more closely with the repository.  A necessary first step to draw our paid for and freely provided information resources together, and encourage reuse of LRA objects by staff and students.
• p56 Recommendations: A page I hope that will be read by more than just myself – spelling out the potential benefits from establishing greater inter-system interoperability.  Noting as well that only 2% of their sample consider their IR and OPAC as definitely interoperating at the moment.
• p58 Flexibility:  The focus on bibliographic staff and their work across IRs is slightly odd, when few institutions explicitly use cataloguing staff – although I know this is on the rise.  Certainly our LRA team uses more specialised support for creating records and copyright investigation, but that wouldn’t mean I wouldn’t be keen to explore how our cataloguers could lend a much needed hand.
• p58 Leverage: I do have my doubts though about the ready availability of in-house experts to modify IRs to interoperate.  In my experience and with those I’ve spoken to around the country, often technical support time is something that is much valued by other services, and something for which the IR has to compete to arrange.  Certainly the expertise is there, but is the staff resource? 
• p60: Fragmentation: “Forward thinking library staff don’t want [system] fragmentation.” I’d agree, but wanting it and achieving it are a big challenge when you look at the mix of proprietary and open source resources that make up a HEIs information infrastructure.  Certainly we work towards it, but I think we’re a long way off from achieving it.

Others with a more technical mind may well get even more out of this report than I did.  It’s certainly a very useful and eye opening read in some places, whilst in others I found myself nodding along with conclusions that I’ve certainly experienced.  It does offer more grist to the mill for those trying to find support for achieving inter-operability, and it also provides a useful snapshot of the current UK HEI IR/OPAC scene.  While I don’t 100% agree with all of its suggested recommendations I will remain interested in seeing how JISC and the community respond to it.

Libraries of the Future dissected

Watching the recently released JISC Libraries of the Future video.  Some reactions and thoughts, with time stamps so you can jump to the right point.

• 00:20 Long intro for a 9 min video
• 00:32 Indeed, the physical space of the library isn’t the be-all and end all anymore.  Nor has it been to be honest all the years I’ve been a professional.
• 00:45 Who are these people?  On screen names might have been a good idea – most of these talking heads haven’t got immediate recognition factor (I know if I’d been on there no one would know I was without a caption!)
• 01:12  First mention of Google.  Is this the library of the future?  These two guys I will say are pretty typical of most of my students.
• 01:25 Oh that’s who she is, Director of Oxford Libraries. Would have been useful to know earlier.
• 01:39 Yep, mobile devices are the future (and indeed present) of an increasing number of students accessing information.  How many of our information resources we provide are m-compatible?  Indeed hands up those of you who have access to mobile devices comparable to the students to test them out?  Thought so…
• 01:50 More clued up information literate student comments.  Uses books too, that’s a shocker – can’t be a scientist.
• 02:12 Technology as enabler not driver?  I think it’s a bit of both personally.  24/7 global access is real demand, and usually satisfied I’d say.  24/7 support on the other hand…
• 02:40 Really warming to Sarah Thomas (Oxford).  Never met her, but she seems an insightful individual.
• 02:53 Oh now you suggest technology is a catalyst for change as well. 
• 03:00 Technology lets you work smarter, but you have to change to make use of it. Yep, agree, old paradigms just don’t hold in Library 2.0.
• 03:20 Popular themes for libraries of the future.  First talking head still talking about the library as a physical space, I think less and less that the space will be so crucial.  But that’s only opinion.  But a fair point raised about study space, rather than storage space as a crucial continuing role.
• 03:58 The library will be like a bee hive?  Filled with workers, and drones thrown out to die when their purpose is through?  Not quite the enabling metaphor I’d have hoped for.  I don’t think bees show excitement, more a work ethic.
• 04:25 Sounds like the DWL fullfils many of these criteria for a future library, which is quite heartening.
• 05:06 Libraries as contributors to knowledge base.  Nothing new, this is what we’ve been doing for years, exposing our catalogues, websites and information and making sure the metadata is discoverable.  Certainly the repository is doing this!
• 05:13 What does the future hold for the librarians?  Early retirement somewhere hot would be nice.
• 05:29 The old fashioned librarian is a “detail oriented, highly introspective individual”. Erm, not me then, ah but the modern librarian is an entrepreneurial, enthusiastic and more outward looking.  Yeah, that’s me, clearly I’m future proofed.  But what do we do with all the old librarians who don’t meet this specification? Retrain?
• 05:55 Loss of face to face contact with users.  Sad but true, hence the need to engage with them through other channels.  Blogs, twitter etc.
• 06.28 Academic image and card catalogue juxtaposed.  Surely no one is using those in academia anymore?
• 06:39 This video brought to you by JISC and the number 9.
• 07:12 Libraries need to change the way they work and support learning, teaching and research.  Ah, but many of us are already.  Good to hear about levels of investment from JISC though towards this end.
• 07:51 The sound track hardly screams modern with its classical violins.
• 08:16 Global environment, but no mention of potential competitors for library services.  Whither Google University and the like.  I think there are some big sharks out there that we need to be aware of, ready to pounce unless we’re more mobile/adaptable and promoting the real USPs that we libraries and librarians offer to our fee paying users.
• 08:29 This year long JISC campaign and debate, don’t recall engaging in it myself.  Or is this the start of the debate, discuss!
• 08:56 Libraries are happening places.  Groovy man.
• 09:12 Agree, libraries need to act now and plan to meet the future challenges. 

Well that was well worth watching, despite my misgivings at the start.  Quite a bit of food for thought, even if most of the conclusions and points raised were hardly news to me.  So the debate has begun.  But at what level will it happen?  Since all these talking heads were either very senior librarians or students, I didn’t see a lot of input from those of us exploring, experimenting and adapting technologies and techniques.  Then again, I am blogging about this – so maybe I am starting to kick into the debate. 

Okay people – what do you think?

CILIP Umbrella 2009 (Part 2 of 2)

After a good breakfast the final day of the conference began with more breakout sessions.

Maltesers mean answers: a sweeter service for students based on user feedback: Angela Horrocks & Davina Omar, Kingston University.
Kingston University talked about their annual survey run every March for many years by the library with a chance to win Wii or Ipod, but maltesers for everyone. The incentive was small but drew in a good number of students. This survey is in addition to national student survey, but helps gets them in the answering frame of mind to complete the major one. The library survey fills a very important need that the NSS doesn’t cover, for both students and library services. Having a clear purpose for the survey is very important, as otherwise the risk of the students getting survey fatigue could be high. Kingston focus on how students learn and this is the U.S.P. of the survey. Knowing the paths students use to access (e.g. mboile/vle etc) is very important in shaping how and what they teach to students, something I thought was especially interesting.

In terms of resources Kingston use software bought in from Priority Research, allowing their customisation, to handle the survey online along with the analysis. There are some issues

1. The silent majority (10% return on population) and so worries over accurate representation.
2. Contacting non-users → how to approach them
3. Setting the questions → to be open and not drive students down a particular route.

In terms of staffing, need to give the staff the time and the top down support to do the user survey. Have to be prepared to trust the outcome – if students make a demand clear, need to respond appropriately. Kingston suggested you might need to think about quotas – departments, levels, ages or other demographic factors that you want to achieve in returns for appropriate representation. Thinking about how/why you might want to include as many of these as you can. Early surveys (1993) very much targeted at specific user groups, thought to be especially disadvantaged or in need. Yearly surveys since early 90s allow trends and rising (and reducing) priorities for student bodies to be clearly demonstrated.

In 2008 reintroduced 1-2-1 interviews on top of focus groups and surveys. A dozen done to test the waters, as an approach to non-users. Also now do additional focus groups at start of academic year to test early responses to changes put in place. Worry survey is contributing to sample already engaging users rather than non-users. 100 1-2-1s done in 2009 – gave a good snap shot of individual user experiences, rather than anonymised, average student point of vein. Survey moved to online this last year (partly environmental) but also reinvent survey (at least look and feel) – still offer maltesers to those that come to bank of computers. Comments and response from previous year’s survey included in next year’s, so the students can see how library has reacted. Drawbacks include lack of benchmarking with external entities, survey fatigue

The changing landscape of libraries: Tim Leach, BDP
This session was about buildings and architectural considerations. Tim said that library user needs strictly speaking haven’t changed in centuries, light and study space for example, just the ways in which we use technologies and building designs to accommodate them. As technology allows users to work in other places than our library spaces, we have to ensure that our spaces continue to meet their needs and make a welcoming environment they want to visit. The UCL masterplan takes the inherent problems with their historic building and tries to provide as many solutions within a limited rebuild. The key issue was space – due to earlier renovations over the years the original building space is not what it was. There is a need for positive first impression from the first moment walking through door. The building must be legible and accessible, the use signage as a sign of failure (not a point I agree with 100%).

Architectural furniture and fixtures define use of areas, and are not flexible but are suitable for certain environments (e.g. where levels of privacy is desirable). However, they can be a block to interaction between different spaces. Natural light and ventilation provide an environment that can be comfortable for most people. Use technology to change way materials stored and accessed, not just treating shelving as the only answer. Even get people on roofs of buildings by building structures into the environment that surrounds them.

The great good place Andrew Cranfield, IFLA Library Buildings and Equipment Section
Library as the third place (between home and work) was the theme of Andrew’s talk. Library environment and impact of the building resign on staff functions – the two are not independent and need to be considered together. Commented that many libraries today remain too conservative in their redesigns. Monopoly of information provision from libraries is now gone, and must address other approaches to provide services to users. Ambitious libraries (buildings) today seem to reflect new ways of thinking – no longer temple of knowledge to stand for generations but a right here/right now environment with more akin to the retail experience. Non-compartmentalisation of environments – books and café culture should be intertwined (e.g. like the idea stores).

From: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sarahmae/126644558/

Cerritos Public Library has a books entrance way and 1.2 million visitors/year for tiny local population. Andrew talked of his distaste for elitist colour schemes (black and white starkness) much better to have welcoming colours. Very, very white buildings in 6 months need repainting (e.g. Amsterdam central library). Cultural Black Diamond in Copenhagen – no feeling coming into library, almost too far the other way as a cultural centre, but not a library at all.

Libraries Change Lives Awards
The most interesting part of the awards was that the news of the winners (Leeds Central Libraries) was out on twitter 30 minutes before the start of the ceremony.  Andrew Motion spoke briefly too.

Building a successful library Web 2 service James Smith (Sunderland Libraries) and Nick Stopforth (Newcastle Libraries)

The session was based on things they have done and have learned through trial and error. They shared with us their 7 lessons (well 5 as they over ran and the session ended before they could finish) they have learned through using Web 2 resources such as twitter, wikis, podcasting etc. They did demonstrate a very interesting mashup with Google maps, World War II bombing maps of Sunderland and eye witness accounts of the bombing. The session was mostly full of public librarians, who are it seems less clued up than HE libraries on this sort of technology and how/where it can fit into their working lives (3/4 of the audience had not even heard of twitter for example).

—

That brought the conference to an end. It had been a packed two days, and I would have loved an extra day either before or after to more fully digest everything that had been discussed. The highs would have to include my session, the networking and the updating of information and skills in general. The lows, well the “gala” conference dinner, lack of hands on sessions and only two days for a very intensive conference. All the same I hope to be back for 2011!

CILIP Umbrella 2009 (Part 1 of 2)

This Tuesday and Wednesday I went down to CILIP Umbrella for the biennial all UK libraries conference. I always enjoy this particular event, as it’s a real chance to meet librarians from across a board spectrum of sectors; not just HE or FE. It’s never heavily populated by HE librarians which I think is an especial shame as I’ve always benefited from the very different insights.   Nearly 700 delegates were registered to attend!

Umbrella has 9 parallel tracks as well as keynote sessions, which means it’s impossible for any one person to attend it all. So what follows is part 1 (or 2) of my notes of the sessions that I was in. I make no claims to completeness (nor lack of bias) but I hope it gives you a flavour of the event, and maybe perhaps guides you towards attending in 2011.

Tuesday morning shortly after 10am saw the conference was opened by the CILIP President and Ian Snowly. This was followed by the keynote.

Charles N Brown: Not evolutionary revolutionary (plenary) from Charlotte NC.

Talked about public
Library service and their aspirations, and how they met them in terms of improving library services. Rated 5* and regarded as one of the top in the USA. Saw his role a there to shake things up and people out of their silos. Staff engagement was a detailed part of the efforts to organisational transformation, with about 20% of the whole staff were directly involved. Their buy in was critical for real transformation and their knowledge and experience of what worked and what didn’t was crucial for planning. Also looked to retail sector (e.g. Target) for models that could be used in terms of customer satisfaction, service delivery, marketing and opening new markets. Untapped talent in organisation needed to be tapped, even if the standard requirements for a post are not met (e.g. masters in librarianship) – STAR Behavioural Interviewing. Lots of updates (weekly) to staff on what was going on, brown bag lunches with service director, intranet pages as well as formal meetings as well. Though this still didn’t defeat all of the rumour mill. He ended with a couple of personal favourite quotes “Change should be as common as breakfast cereal” and “If you want to make enemies, try to change something.”

After the session I attempted to get onto wireless network, but looks like once again the Linux based netbook is excluded by HE wireless networks. Eduroam does seem to have issues with Xandros and wireless access, as this is second location I’ve had issues. Yet at Huddersfield the week before, no problems.

After tea it was the breakout sessions.

Captive audiences – adding value in FE audiences (out of my silo): Susan Tailby, Eastleigh College
This session focussed on FE audiences (14-19 year olds)– looking to build up students experiences during college time, and what they can to enhance this experience. One example was taking lessons from book shops. Covered graphic novels and film tie ins as an example of engaging readers. Use reading groups or virtual groups to draw customers.

ID target groups as first step. Start as a pilot, easier to start small. Requirements such as wanting users to listen to CDs may well mean new kit is needed; or possibly just more than you’ve had in the past. Also need to think about what do you do once a particular engagement or activity is over – you’ll have to store resources for example. Need to think about space and disruption to other users from activities, though at the same time can draw in passing people who might not otherwise have joined.

For ESOL Reading Groups the key is to build in time for reflection in any engagement activities – which I thought was a good point, too often much of what we teach is in a deliver and move on paradigm. The speaker moved on to talk about the Six book challenge aimed at adult learners. Noted libraries can be scary for those with poor English. Be creative, build relationships, build self-esteem of students and work collaboratively with librarians in other sectors.

Reading takes the biscuit (Kathryn Harrison and Judith Robinson) Kirklees Council, library services
Major USP was adaptability to users → get involved by making sure the sessions were available at times and locations to suit as many people as possible. Summer 2006 was the pilot scheme – welcome new users in informally and getting them to met staff. Ensured that they wanted to come back on their own. The Birkby Fartown group leaders worried about how to engage with the readers. They worried that making them talk from day one could be difficult, so refocussed on hands on activities to start with and let the speaking grow organically from that.

In the first case this was sewing. They needed a lot of support, but thanks to collaborations with the local school this was very successful – and ended up winning an ALW award for the work.

They have also made a key part of their engagement local sponsorship with people including local football and biscuit company. Lack of captive audience means they spend more time trying to get people together. It is time consuming building partnerships and relationships initially; but in the long run this pays back in strong relationships and easier future collaboration. It also helps in terms of proving value of service, due to the wider number of stakeholders able to speak out about the value the library service has added to their activities,

It seemed from this the message I could take back to HE is that if you want to engage with the users you need to go out to them and engage at a time and place that suits them. This doesn’t work easily with current working practices and would require a rethink of how and why we do things.

After more tea I ran my workshop on visual communication. It was a very hands on affair, since as an activist learner I believe others need to get stuck in as well, and went down very well. Certainly for the rest of the conference other delegates kept coming up to me and saying how they’d heard all about my great workshop and wished they’d gone!

The evening meal at the Hendon Airforce Museum was an interesting affair (great surroundings, ok meal, terrible after dinner speaker) but with great company and excellent networking. I’ll draw a veil over the karaoke that followed. Sleep beckoned before the second and final day of the conference…

Twitter feeds from the conference #cilipumbrella #umb #umbrella09 #umb09

Higher Education in a Web 2.0 – some thoughts

I’m currently reading through the the HEA and JISC’s report “Higher Education in a Web 2.0 World ” that’s just been published on the Web.  A few thoughts and highlights follow.

p8 – “Students are looking for traditional approaches, notably personal contact, in a modern setting…The bridge between Web 2.0 in social user and in learning is as yet only dimly perceived by students“.  I’m taking this to mean that students are viewing Web 2 as more of a social thing, and not a learning activity.  I know talking with people like Alan (Cann) that students can take a dim view of our intruding on what they view as their “personal space”.  There is the broader debate of the where the divide between private/public lies in social media (mine are certainly blended and intertwined) that has to be remembered – do the students really want us being their “friends” on Facebook or following them on twitter – or vice versa.

p10 Recommendations “HEIs to take steps to keep abreast of the prior experience and expectations of their student bodies“. Er yes, always useful – question is how? In the past I’ve been involved in pre-assessing students (for future ICT skills training) and the picture has been spotty and incomplete. Asking students about their skills base is not a good metric, most of them either considerably over or under estimate their ability.  On the other hand, this might mean HEI has to work more closely with secondary education – OK for the UK, but what about for our thousands of overseas students?  Sounds quite a job.

“HEIs support staff to become proficient users of an appropriate range of technologies and skilled practitioners of e-pedagogy” Well yes I agree, but this might be with some considerable reluctance – going on the experience of people I meet at conferences, those of us up skilled and enthusiastically engaging in this area is still very much in minority right now.  A lot of time and resource will be needed in training, and from senior levels in advocating staff to really engage here.

p15 I see in their definition of Web 2.0 and social software that “Media sharing” is mentioned, but doesn’t include “file sharing”. I wonder as I delve further in, if the culture of free/open access sharing of information, music etc is going to be included as a consideration.  It might breach (c) laws left right and centre, but I bet a lot of students are doing it, and don’t see if as a problem.  Online essay banks might be the least of our worries.

p19 The Five principal perspectives on the Social Web.  I’m a point 4 man myself (force for good and offers possibilities – IDIC I say!).  I seem to know a lot of people who’ll embody the other points though.

p20/21 Ah good, access and the digital divide is getting  a look in.  I keep worrying that we’ll get to a point of assuming students have a certain skills/access base but won’t require them to have it to join an institution.

p23 “Students may think they are doing this [checking validity of courses] although their methods may not be sufficiently rigorous”.  Oh yes indeed, as I said about p10 – self perception of ability can be seriously flawed.  On the other hand on the same page there’s a good quote in support of peer-peer enabled support.

p24 “Information literacies…represent a significant and growing deficit area“. Not news to we librarians who have (all of my professional working life at least) been striving to get these onto the agenda across institutions (with mixed results).  This might well be the single most important point for us LIS types

p29-32 Focus is on current Web 2 being used, bit thin on details to be honest “Facebook and Second Life presences for most HEIs”.  Would have preferred a few exemplars in here, maybe even some best practice models.

p34-35 Back to focus on information literacies – will it actually mention the key role librarians have been playing here? Nope, they raised my hopes.  All the same what the report stresses are important considerations are well worth the read (if nothing else) for librarians involved in supporting learners.  Which is, let’s face it, all of us.

p37 Some very timely comments about the danger to HEIs in the UK if they continue to focus on throughput and efficacy, rather than excellence and relevance.  I’ve commented elsewhere on this myself, so it is sobering but timely to see this appearing in black and white in this report.

p40 The new learners and the old HEI structures currently co-existing, but for how much longer? One of the themes of this report that it keeps coming back to is that the learning styles and mores of school carry over into HE.  I don’t think personally I’m familiar enough with how secondary (or even primary) educators are training their students in terms of information literacy and ICT skills, let alone their approaches to study and learning.  I’m sure I’m not alone.  Perhaps that’s the key lesson I’m taking away from this report – a need to understand the adjacent educational realms more.  The stark phrase in the report “The next generation is unlikely to be so accommodating” – sent more than a few shivers down my spine.

This is a very readable report, with a lot of very interesting points made in it – if you do get the chance, I’d certainly advocate reading it yourself; don’t take my interpretations for gospel in any way!  Access the report directly here.

Digital Britain – governmental interim report from DCMS

On 29 January 2009 the Government published a plan to secure Britain’s place at the forefront of the global digital economy. The interim report contains more than 20 recommendations, including specific proposals on:

• next generation networks
• universal access to broadband
• the creation of a second public service provider of scale
• the modernisation of wireless radio spectrum holdings
• a digital future for radio
• a new deal for digital content rights
• enhancing the digital delivery of public services

You can read the report here (and yes there is a executive summary if you don’t feel like wading through the whole report – I know it’s a bit much for a Monday morning for me!)  Obviously, aside from libraries being under the DCMS’ umbrella, how the rest of the country are interacting with the digital society before they come to us will have a signicant impact on how and what they teach us.  This set me thinking that personally I’ve long since thought that the age of pure skills teaching (“this is how you search”) style of library educational activity is dying away; perhaps not totally but no longer as a core activity.  What we need to be teaching more is how to critically evaluate material (“Okay, why is that a good resource?”) as well as understanding your own informational search style.  Let me expand on this (and go slightly off on a tangent from the report)

Sadly this isn’t the sort of thing that can be taught standing at the front of a class of 100+ students running through a demo.  It’s a more interrogative and iterative style of teaching; something that requires all the more that user education from us is embedded within the curriculum rather than bolted on.  Are we equipped to teach this sort of thing?  Personally I’d argue yes; most librarian trainers I know are more than capable of; we just need to find the right in with departments (and I’m talking globally here, not particularly at Leics).  So how do we achieve this?

A discussion we had in the office last week was along the lines of “Should information librarians be effectively departmental staff first rather than library staff first?”.  I know some places embed their librarians actually within departments, rather than basing them in the library; from memory Australia is especially good at this.  Being within the department, physically and strategically would have the knock on advantages of keeping us as librarians better informed of what departmental needs and challenges are, getting us closer to our user communities and ensuring that when it comes time to turn to people to set up courses – well we’re close at hand and embedded from day one.

After all, just how beneficial is it for us to be based in a central building these days?  But I digress.  Doubtless there are examples of this kind of practise out there already; and perhaps we need to be paying closer attention to them to cope with the Digital Britain of tomorrow!

The Research Library’s Role in Digital Repository Service – report

The Research Library’s Role in Digital Repository Services, Final Report of the ARL Digital Repository Issues Task Force (January 2009), http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/repository-services-report.pdf

Might be worth a read for anyone with an interest in the repository world.  I’ve run off a copy so if you need to borrow it.  Best comment in the text so far, talking about the evolution of the repository scene:

We now understand better that institutions produce large and ever-growing quantities of data, images, multimedia works, learning objects, and digital records while mass digitization has launched a new scale of digital content collecting.

And then we have this:

…it is evident that despite the varied funding and resource challenges faced by research institutions, delivering repository services is a crucial function of research libraries.

There’s a lot of worthy content in here that whilst might be focussed on what’s going on in the US is worth noting that it’s always been my impression that they’re probably a year or more ahead of us in terms of general reposiotry developments.  Certainly the section I’ve just been reading in the report about digital records management rang very true as an area the UK as a whole seems to have made very little progress in.  We’re still at the garden-shed hobbyist level of repository management, still experimenting.  In the meantime we do need to think about the real organisational impact of the repository on our institutions, and how we need to carefully shape how and where the repositories sit in all this.

I know I, for one, am still very much learning this.

Economic Implications of Alternative Scholarly Publishing Models – a report

One of the first questions I was ever asked by an academic in a previous incarnation was “All this open access thing is all very well, but who is going to pay for it all?” I didn’t have an answer then, and couldn’t swear to having one know – but at least I know where I might go looking for one.

There’s a big project report out on this subject that’s probably worth being aware of; though at 288 pages I don’t think I’m likely to be reading much more than skimming through it (I’m a kinethetic learner not a theorotician!).  It looks extremely data rich in terms of a lot of open access and scholarly publication information, and certainly I’d point people towards the opening few pages and last few for an overview of the issues in OA and scholalry publications today.

One figure that jumped out at me is on page 17 of the pdf, where it works out that for an academic article on 30% of the cost is the publisher.  This seems pretty rich, no pun intended,of the the j-publishers.  On the other hand p22 shows the savings to all from adopting a more OA approach to publishing.  Could this be the fabled win-win option for the future of scholarly comms?  Not much money for the UK library sector saved (only £11m, which split 180 odd ways doesn’t amount to much – but is this pre-economic collapse of recent months?) 

Hmn, reading on to p27 and looks like an OAP model will actually cost HEIs more. And a little further we have the follow quote which talks about the library world in a little more detail

It is difficult to say exactly how open access publications will be treated by research libraries
and what role libraries would play in dissemination and preservation in these alternative
publishing models. Nevertheless, we suggest that research libraries may continue to play a key
role in providing access to open access journals and have costed library handling activities
accordingly. With little evidence to date that open access self-archiving leads to subscription
cancellations, acquisition cost savings have not been included. However, should they arise in the
future, there would be potential for significant additional savings.

Towards the end of the report there’s a very heartening conclusion (p231) point made about OAP

The costs, benefits and impacts of alternative scholarly publishing models revealed by this
analysis demonstrate that research and research communication are major activities and the
costs involved are substantial. Preliminary analysis of the potential benefits of more open access
to research findings suggests that returns to research can also be substantial, and that different
models for scholarly publishing can make a material difference to the returns realised, as well as
the costs faced.

Anyway – if you are involved in research, or supporting research, this worthy report is well worth at least a cursory glance.

Report: The demographics of social networkers

This morning I’ve been reading a couple of reports.  The first is by Amanda Lenhart on the PEW Internet & American Life Project entitled Adults and Social Network Sites.  According to their data:

• Adults with online social networking profiles has gone up from 8% (2005) to 35% (Dec 2008 )
• 30% of adults 35-44 have a profile (the report covers other age ranges, but since this is my peer group…)

Of these adults who do use them

• 50% have MySpace profiles
• 22% have Facebook profiles
• 6% have LinkedIn profiles

I wonder how those numbers would look from a UK audience?  I’d suspect MySpace wouldn’t be anything like as popular, at least that’s my perception of their market penetration over here – what do you think?

Personally I’ve profiles on all three, but really only use FB for my professional and personal networking.  LinkedIn just leaves me cold.  Then again the median age of the LinkedIn user in this report is 40; so I’m a fair bit below that demographic point.  Shockingly the report concludes that on the whole adults are less likely to have online social networking profiles (65% vs 35%); something I’m sure is replicated in order of magnitude over here if not the exact numbers.

One paragraph later on was quite interesting, following on from things Alan and others have talked about in SmallWorldz and elsewhere – that of maintaining multiple online identities

• A user generall wants to be finable by the people they wish to add to their online network…but may not wish to be so visable as to be harassed or observed by people totally unknown to them.

Or I’m sure in some cases people who are known to them, not quite sure I want everyone I’ve ever studied or worked with in my professional networks; and social networking security settings aren’t that customisable in many instances.  Interestingly 29% of users discovered their friends political interests/affiliations through networking sites.  Then again how many people list their real leanings on these sites? 

The report concludes with the data and methodology of the work.  So well worth a read, the main text is only 10 pages long.

Final report on Institutional and Subject repositories published

Read the report here:

Jones, C and Darby, R and Gilbert, L and Lambert, S  [2008] Report of the Subject and Institutional Repositories Interactions Study.

Just glancing through the exec summary makes for interesting reading.  A lot of the survey work was conducted with the UKCoRR membership last year and in many respects is a good overview of current custom, practice and cultural drivers that exists in the UK repository field.

I was interested to note that the first of their 7 recommendations was “continued support be given to implementation of national standards for unambiguous identification of authors, funders and higher education institutions”.  Having had a little involvement with REF preparations I know how crucial this step is going to be, and that as LIS staff we’re likely to have a considerable role to play behind the scenes in facilitating this.

Report: Embedding digital repositories in the University of London

I’ve spent the last hour or so reading this report on the SHERPA-LEAP universities.  It makes for interesting, though very heavy going, reading – at its heart is the hypothesis that digital repos are being under-used and seeks to explore the reasons why.  It touches on the emotive, the logical, the strategic and the operational reasons for embracing or not in fair detail. 

I found myself nodding along with some of the results, many of which are essentially common sense if you’ve worked in the repo field for any amount of time.  I was especially interested in the 7 motivations for digital repositories (these things always come in 7s, I used to talk about the 7.5 rules of repository advocacy just to be different).  These are:

1. Fear of missing the boat
2. Providing a HEI shop window
3. Enabling archiving/curration of institutional assets
4. Facilitating open access of scholalry outputs
5. Reducing dependence on traditional publishing
6. Providing up to date overview of institutional outputs
7. Exploiting added value feature of digital content.

Each of which is a motivator for a different set of stakeholders (as you’d expect).  I’ve not met many folks driven by (1) but I’m sure as everyone seems to have a repository these days that they’re more common than I’ve encountered.  As a librarian I know (5) has been something I’ve been dealing with since 1997 with Big Deals providing lots of titles yet at the same time denying us the level of granularity in terms of reviewing what we purchase.  But then when you’re looking at price hikes of 58% in toto against an increase in the retail price index of 11%; well you know there’s little else libraries could have done at the time than say “yes” to the deals.

And I’ve not even got to the part of how to overcome the barriers!  The exec summary is worth a read, even if you don’t feel you can plough through the whole report.