I accidentally got myself volunteered to help out with a big weeding project we're doing at the moment, so I spent my desk shift formatting and printing out a 7-page title list (and checking in box, pointing people to the stapler, finding a full-text article for someone, and phoning again to find out what's up with our EFTPOS/card reload machine). Then after lunch I went to spend what turned out to be three hours looking at the shelves to make decisions (or in some cases indecisions) about each book and jot notes on my list.
This particular subject area was about Turkic/Altaic languages, and for historical reasons probably half the titles were written in Russian; many others in French or German. It just so happens that at one point in my life I learned enough Mongolian to catch a bus to another town after several misunderstandings and to explain to people that switching to Russian was actually going to diminish our chances of communication. Alas, I don't recall any/much of it now, but I can still sound out the Cyrillic alphabet, and after this afternoon's session have learned several words in Russian after all: 'dictionary', 'writing', 'language', and various obvious cognates.
Weeding tends to be dusty work: I took a break halfway through to wash my hands, down some water, and refresh my sanity while discussing my progress with a manager. Shortly after I got back to work I took a briefer break to stand at the end of the stack while a long earthquake rattled all the shelves. (Honestly, figuring I was on the fourth floor, I was rating it a magnitude 3.9; it turns out it was a 5.2. I probably wasn't factoring in the extra distance compared to where my home is in relation to the epicentre. Still, it really didn't seem that big.)
Finished my list and washed my hands again. Is there such a thing as dust poisoning? Because one feels so much better after washing one's hands. Yes, one can wear gloves, but they're supremely awkward so I long ago gave up.
Next step: type up notes, sort, and send to manager to forward to some subject specialists. Step after that: format and print out the next list.
Friday, 25 May 2012
Friday, 18 May 2012
How libraries can buy DRM-free ebooks
Libraries hate DRM because our customers hate DRM because it makes the ebooks we buy really truly appallingly horrible to use. I can never find the cartoon when I want it, but it's something like "How to download an ebook in 37 easy steps". It involves lots of installation of software and restarting of the computer and logging in to things and troubleshooting, and the final step is to give up and look for it on BitTorrent. (ETA: As per Andromeda's comment, here's the cartoon.)
But what can we do when publishers require DRM before they sell anything to us?
Well, the new venture Unglue.it could change things. The idea behind Unglue.it is that:
- author/copyright-holders pick a lump sum that they think is fair compensation for the rights to their book;
- people who want to read the book pledge however much they want;
- when the lump sum is reached, the book is released as a DRM-free, open-licensed ebook, free to the entire world. (If the lump sum isn't reached, no money's taken from your credit card.)
This is aimed at individual readers, but why shouldn't libraries get in on the game? There are apparently some 16,000-odd public library branches in the USA: if each one of those made a one-off pledge of US$1 then American Book Award-winner Love Like Gumbo would be available to their members (and everyone else in the world) in perpetuity. That's one heck of a cheap ebook. You can store a copy on the library server, or just link to it from the catalogue. You can print it out, if you want - as many times as you want. And you won't have to buy it again after it's been borrowed 26 times.
Currently Unglue.it has campaigns for five books. (If this takes off, and I'm convinced it will, there'll be more.) If any of these books would be of interest to the members of your library, then figure out what's a fair price (or what you can afford -- whichever's less) and then pledge just half of that from your book budget.
If you really can't afford it (or purchasing really has to go through approved suppliers, no exceptions ever), well, then promote the campaigns to your members instead.
Or do nothing. When the books are funded, you and your members will get them for free anyway. :-)
I just think that this is such a natural extension of our mission to use our funds wisely to provide resources to our communities that it's hardly an extension at all. I think it's the answer we've been asking for to the problem of ebooks. And I think it's the best consortial deal ever.
So let's go forth and Unglue!
Tuesday, 15 May 2012
Institutional repositories and the problem of versions
One of the (many) problems I see our institutional repository running into with busy academics is the utter confusion about what they're allowed to upload into it.
We promise them we'll check all the copyright for them (at Sherpa/Romeo) and won't put anything live that shouldn't be live. Which solves half the problem.
But the other half of the problem is that even when the journal does allow some version to go up, it's always a different version. Some say the preprint is okay but nothing else; some say only the postprint; some say the final publisher's version. So when the author is dutifully filling out the details in the repository submission form, unless they go and do their research (something which we're telling them they don't have to do) they don't know what version to upload. Even if they do know the difference between a preprint and a postprint or that something labelled "author's copy" is nevertheless the publisher's version.
So, what we need is some magic DSpace (etc) plugin which, once the author's filled out the journal field, goes to look that up on Sherpa/Romeo and pops up a wee box that says "Cool, you can upload your preprint - by which we mean [insert clear and concise definition here]."
Of course I use the word "magic" advisedly: from what I hear of DSpace this'd be difficult to impossible, and I don't imagine other repository management software is light years better. Ideas are easy, implementation is hard.
(The third half of the problem is that it seems some academics don't actually save these previous versions. A solution to this is probably even harder to centrally automate.)
We promise them we'll check all the copyright for them (at Sherpa/Romeo) and won't put anything live that shouldn't be live. Which solves half the problem.
But the other half of the problem is that even when the journal does allow some version to go up, it's always a different version. Some say the preprint is okay but nothing else; some say only the postprint; some say the final publisher's version. So when the author is dutifully filling out the details in the repository submission form, unless they go and do their research (something which we're telling them they don't have to do) they don't know what version to upload. Even if they do know the difference between a preprint and a postprint or that something labelled "author's copy" is nevertheless the publisher's version.
So, what we need is some magic DSpace (etc) plugin which, once the author's filled out the journal field, goes to look that up on Sherpa/Romeo and pops up a wee box that says "Cool, you can upload your preprint - by which we mean [insert clear and concise definition here]."
Of course I use the word "magic" advisedly: from what I hear of DSpace this'd be difficult to impossible, and I don't imagine other repository management software is light years better. Ideas are easy, implementation is hard.
(The third half of the problem is that it seems some academics don't actually save these previous versions. A solution to this is probably even harder to centrally automate.)
Friday, 11 May 2012
Links of Interest - ebook lending, web design, bibliographic software, open access
Lending eBooks
Colorado's Douglas County Libraries has come up with a model whereby they buy, host, and manage the lending of ebooks (including DRM), rather than subscribe to publishers' platforms. See more details on the model and a letter to publishers about how it works.
Here's a cute way of reminding users of the value of libraries when they check out print books. It would be interesting to think of ways to make this work with e-resources...
Web design
See a demo of One-Pager, a free template for library websites designed and user-tested to make it easy to find the most important information - and to be immediately mobile-friendly and accessible. You can read more or download the code here.
Bibliographic software
Beyond Bibliographies: Collaborating with Citation Software (powerpoint) is a poster comparing Endnote, RefWorks, Zotero, and Mendeley.
Open Access
(I try to include a variety of stuff in these round-ups, but open access is kind of a strong interest of mine, so...)
Some keen-eyed librarians noticed that the previously open-access Reference and User Services Quarterly was suddenly open-access no longer; the Library Loon investigated and reported back. Apparently in future articles will be embargoed for a year, although as at writing older articles aren't available yet either.
(This reminds me that I keep meaning to find out whether The New Zealand Library And Information Management Journal is intended to be open access or if it's just openly accessible by default, so to speak. In any case they're there at the moment - as are all the LIANZA conference papers from 2004. They're not browsable/searchable in the most user-friendly format but I know from experience what the web group's dealing with, and that just getting them all in one place is a fantastic achievement.)
The Library Loon also has a fantastic discussion about how to recognise scammy "open access" publishers.
SCORE Library Survey Report "aimed to get a national [UK] perspective on institutional engagement in Open Educational Resources through their librarians".
Open Access in Chemistry - slides from a presentation at the 2011 ACS Spring Meeting giving an excellent overview of what it says on the tin - in terms both of numbers and of attitudes.
Colorado's Douglas County Libraries has come up with a model whereby they buy, host, and manage the lending of ebooks (including DRM), rather than subscribe to publishers' platforms. See more details on the model and a letter to publishers about how it works.
Here's a cute way of reminding users of the value of libraries when they check out print books. It would be interesting to think of ways to make this work with e-resources...
Web design
See a demo of One-Pager, a free template for library websites designed and user-tested to make it easy to find the most important information - and to be immediately mobile-friendly and accessible. You can read more or download the code here.
Bibliographic software
Beyond Bibliographies: Collaborating with Citation Software (powerpoint) is a poster comparing Endnote, RefWorks, Zotero, and Mendeley.
Open Access
(I try to include a variety of stuff in these round-ups, but open access is kind of a strong interest of mine, so...)
Some keen-eyed librarians noticed that the previously open-access Reference and User Services Quarterly was suddenly open-access no longer; the Library Loon investigated and reported back. Apparently in future articles will be embargoed for a year, although as at writing older articles aren't available yet either.
(This reminds me that I keep meaning to find out whether The New Zealand Library And Information Management Journal is intended to be open access or if it's just openly accessible by default, so to speak. In any case they're there at the moment - as are all the LIANZA conference papers from 2004. They're not browsable/searchable in the most user-friendly format but I know from experience what the web group's dealing with, and that just getting them all in one place is a fantastic achievement.)
The Library Loon also has a fantastic discussion about how to recognise scammy "open access" publishers.
SCORE Library Survey Report "aimed to get a national [UK] perspective on institutional engagement in Open Educational Resources through their librarians".
Open Access in Chemistry - slides from a presentation at the 2011 ACS Spring Meeting giving an excellent overview of what it says on the tin - in terms both of numbers and of attitudes.
Friday, 30 March 2012
Links of Interest 30/3/2012 - article linker, impact factors of open access journals, and more
Customer service
UConn Discovers What Students Want From Their Library - too complex for a pull quote, follow the link for a summary.
Two solutions for increasing the usability of that blasted Article Linker page:
JQ at the University of Oregon writes about High-impact open access journals and includes some invaluable tables of OA journals ranked by SJR, SciMago, and Eigenfactor impact factors. These (sorted by subject) could be useful for promoting OA to departments and to students graduating from university who still want to keep up with research.
Positioning Open Access Journals in a LIS Journal Ranking looks at OA journals in the library science field:
Data curation
Demystifying the data interview: Developing a foundation for reference librarians to talk with researchers about their data
Subscription statistics
Subscriptions in Context (powerpoint) is a clear and elegant presentation for University of Central Oklahoma library faculty liaisons on all the factors the Serials department considers when evaluating subscriptions.
Just for fun
A Library Society of the World thread began, "Gregor Samsa awoke from uneasy dreams to find he had been transformed into a monstrous librarian" and went on from there.
UConn Discovers What Students Want From Their Library - too complex for a pull quote, follow the link for a summary.
Two solutions for increasing the usability of that blasted Article Linker page:
- simple and sweet
- more complex and risky (if you're not a code geek, skip the discussion/coding examples and just scroll to the bottom for the "after" screenshot)
JQ at the University of Oregon writes about High-impact open access journals and includes some invaluable tables of OA journals ranked by SJR, SciMago, and Eigenfactor impact factors. These (sorted by subject) could be useful for promoting OA to departments and to students graduating from university who still want to keep up with research.
Positioning Open Access Journals in a LIS Journal Ranking looks at OA journals in the library science field:
This research uses the h-index to rank the quality of library and information science journals between 2004 and 2008. Selected open access (OA) journals are included in the ranking to assess current OA development in support of scholarly communication. It is found that OA journals have gained momentum supporting high-quality research and publication, and some OA journals have been ranked as high as the best traditional print journals. The findings will help convince scholars to make more contributions to OA journal publications, and also encourage librarians and information professionals to make continuous efforts for library publishing.
Data curation
Demystifying the data interview: Developing a foundation for reference librarians to talk with researchers about their data
As libraries become more involved in curating research data, reference librarians will need to be trained in conducting data interviews with researchers to better understand their data and associated needs. This article seeks to identify and provide definitions for the basic terms and concepts of data curation for librarians to properly frame and carry out a data interview using the Data Curation Profiles (DCP) Toolkit.
Subscription statistics
Subscriptions in Context (powerpoint) is a clear and elegant presentation for University of Central Oklahoma library faculty liaisons on all the factors the Serials department considers when evaluating subscriptions.
Just for fun
A Library Society of the World thread began, "Gregor Samsa awoke from uneasy dreams to find he had been transformed into a monstrous librarian" and went on from there.
Wednesday, 18 January 2012
The opportunity of the SOPA blackout
I don't know how this will come across, but I have serious reservations about the suggestion I've seen in a few places that libraries can take advantage of Wikipedia being down to promote the library.
I mean, yes, we can do that, but if libraries are only useful when Wikipedia's down then libraries are pretty crappy. And yes, I know that's not what people are meaning when they're suggesting/doing this, but it's what it comes across like to me at least. I envisage hordes of students desperately trying to finish their assignments grudgingly admitting, "Okay, for that one 24-hour period in a lifetime when Wikipedia's down, the library's kinda useful. Apart from being slow and clunky and not giving me enough or up-to-date enough information. Thank $Deity Wikipedia's back up tomorrow!"
Because to be honest, when it comes to ready reference, everything sucks compared to Wikipedia. I'm a librarian, I know my library's resources, and I'm also a geek and know how to search the web at large, but if I want a quick introduction to almost anything I go to Wikipedia. If I want to figure out what model my cellphone is, if I want a description of a database that isn't a salespitch, if I want a listing of all the episodes of White Collar, if I want a summary of King Lear, if I want to decode a biochemical reference query I've just received by email so I can start answering it...
If I want to know something and I want to know it now, not in two minutes time, I go to Wikipedia. Because none of the library's references resources is anywhere near as convenient, easy to use, up-to-date, or thorough.
(If I need to know for certain I'll double-check elsewhere. But that doesn't happen nearly as regularly as needing to know it now.)
So to me, the blackout as an opportunity to promote the library as a replacement for Wikipedia is just an opportunity to show people one of our greatest weaknesses. The strengths of a library are so much more than that, but we can't promote them by setting up this comparison.
The real opportunity of the SOPA blackout is to educate people about intellectual property and freedom of information. You know -- that thing which the blackout was supposed to be about.
Beyond the simple ethics of not hijacking an important cause (and btw, I have even graver misgivings about using the blackout to promote the databases sold to us by the publishers supporting SOPA!), teaching people about this stuff is a much more important part of our mission than pointing them to the encyclopaedias. And fulfilling this mission will do far more to promote our real strengths.
I mean, yes, we can do that, but if libraries are only useful when Wikipedia's down then libraries are pretty crappy. And yes, I know that's not what people are meaning when they're suggesting/doing this, but it's what it comes across like to me at least. I envisage hordes of students desperately trying to finish their assignments grudgingly admitting, "Okay, for that one 24-hour period in a lifetime when Wikipedia's down, the library's kinda useful. Apart from being slow and clunky and not giving me enough or up-to-date enough information. Thank $Deity Wikipedia's back up tomorrow!"
Because to be honest, when it comes to ready reference, everything sucks compared to Wikipedia. I'm a librarian, I know my library's resources, and I'm also a geek and know how to search the web at large, but if I want a quick introduction to almost anything I go to Wikipedia. If I want to figure out what model my cellphone is, if I want a description of a database that isn't a salespitch, if I want a listing of all the episodes of White Collar, if I want a summary of King Lear, if I want to decode a biochemical reference query I've just received by email so I can start answering it...
If I want to know something and I want to know it now, not in two minutes time, I go to Wikipedia. Because none of the library's references resources is anywhere near as convenient, easy to use, up-to-date, or thorough.
(If I need to know for certain I'll double-check elsewhere. But that doesn't happen nearly as regularly as needing to know it now.)
So to me, the blackout as an opportunity to promote the library as a replacement for Wikipedia is just an opportunity to show people one of our greatest weaknesses. The strengths of a library are so much more than that, but we can't promote them by setting up this comparison.
The real opportunity of the SOPA blackout is to educate people about intellectual property and freedom of information. You know -- that thing which the blackout was supposed to be about.
Beyond the simple ethics of not hijacking an important cause (and btw, I have even graver misgivings about using the blackout to promote the databases sold to us by the publishers supporting SOPA!), teaching people about this stuff is a much more important part of our mission than pointing them to the encyclopaedias. And fulfilling this mission will do far more to promote our real strengths.
Monday, 9 January 2012
How US intellectual property laws affect the rest of us, and what we can do about it
How can it affect us?
Imagine a New Zealand website which sells (eg Fishpond) or gives away (eg NZETC - Eric Hellman discusses Project Gutenberg Australia) ebooks of material in the public domain. Now imagine that a law in the US allows for this site not only to be blocked from the US, but also to be removed from search engine results (search engines widely used throughout the world) and blocked from receiving any revenue from the US (including revenue for legitimate sales of in-copyright books).
Wait, what?
New Zealand's copyright law puts books in the public domain 50 years after the death of the author (which is bad enough - I'm a fan of our original copyright period of 28 years OR life, whichever was longest); US copyright law currently means any book published after 1923 won't get into the public domain until 2019, if ever (see also the Mickey Mouse Protection Act). The difference between the two means there's a whole bunch of books which are legal for anyone to freely distribute in New Zealand, but illegal to distribute without permission from the rights-holder in the US. Currently we just cope with the disparity. I mean, the authors have been dead for at least 50 years anyway. However...
What are the proposed US laws?
The proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is written such that if any foreign site that is "US-directed" (defined as any site that doesn't actively prevent people in the US from accessing it) distributes anything against US law, then the US can hit it with a bunch of sanctions. Theoretically these sanctions are probably intended to just prevent the site trading with people in the US; in practice, they'd prevent people in most of the world being able to easily access or use the site.
I'm not sure of the relationship of SOPA to the proposed Protect IP Act (PIPA), but that seems to have similar intentions. "Don't Break the Internet" at the Stanford Law Review Online discusses the potential effects of these two bills.
If that's not bad enough, there's the proposed Research Works Act (RWA) which is designed to make open access mandates illegal - and thereby cut down on the amount of open access material available to researchers worldwide. (The rationale is that private publishers publish it, so it shouldn't be free to the public. But if the public is funding the research grants and paying the salaries of the researchers and the peer reviewers then why it shouldn't be locked behind a paywall benefitting only the private publisher, either.) Here's a thorough roundup of blogposts on RWA.
Who would want to do such a thing?
The Association of American Publishers' Professional and Scholarly Publishing put out a press release in support of the RWA; here's a list of AAP/PSP members. One of the sponsors of RWA has received campaign contributions from Elsevier. So has the other.
Elsevier is also on the List of SOPA supporters (pdf) along with quite a lot of other publishers (academic and fiction).
What can we do about it?
If we voted in the US we could contact our representatives and ask them to vote against these bills. But they probably don't care much what foreigners think.
If this were really a free market we libraries could say "Nah, we're not going to buy from [Elsevier] this year, we'll give our money to some other science-publishing company." But publishers have a monopoly on their titles, and academics would generally have words to say if we didn't provide access to the Journal of Important Research in My Field.
But publishers don't only rely on libraries' purchasing money. They also rely on researchers (including non-US researchers, and including library researchers) providing them free articles to publish and providing them free labour in the form of peer review. So what any researcher can do is withdraw that free labour. And while we librarians are encouraging other researchers to take a stand, we can put our money where our mouth is.
(I'll create it for fun. But to give it away I require something more.)
Imagine a New Zealand website which sells (eg Fishpond) or gives away (eg NZETC - Eric Hellman discusses Project Gutenberg Australia) ebooks of material in the public domain. Now imagine that a law in the US allows for this site not only to be blocked from the US, but also to be removed from search engine results (search engines widely used throughout the world) and blocked from receiving any revenue from the US (including revenue for legitimate sales of in-copyright books).
Wait, what?
New Zealand's copyright law puts books in the public domain 50 years after the death of the author (which is bad enough - I'm a fan of our original copyright period of 28 years OR life, whichever was longest); US copyright law currently means any book published after 1923 won't get into the public domain until 2019, if ever (see also the Mickey Mouse Protection Act). The difference between the two means there's a whole bunch of books which are legal for anyone to freely distribute in New Zealand, but illegal to distribute without permission from the rights-holder in the US. Currently we just cope with the disparity. I mean, the authors have been dead for at least 50 years anyway. However...
What are the proposed US laws?
The proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is written such that if any foreign site that is "US-directed" (defined as any site that doesn't actively prevent people in the US from accessing it) distributes anything against US law, then the US can hit it with a bunch of sanctions. Theoretically these sanctions are probably intended to just prevent the site trading with people in the US; in practice, they'd prevent people in most of the world being able to easily access or use the site.
I'm not sure of the relationship of SOPA to the proposed Protect IP Act (PIPA), but that seems to have similar intentions. "Don't Break the Internet" at the Stanford Law Review Online discusses the potential effects of these two bills.
If that's not bad enough, there's the proposed Research Works Act (RWA) which is designed to make open access mandates illegal - and thereby cut down on the amount of open access material available to researchers worldwide. (The rationale is that private publishers publish it, so it shouldn't be free to the public. But if the public is funding the research grants and paying the salaries of the researchers and the peer reviewers then why it shouldn't be locked behind a paywall benefitting only the private publisher, either.) Here's a thorough roundup of blogposts on RWA.
Who would want to do such a thing?
The Association of American Publishers' Professional and Scholarly Publishing put out a press release in support of the RWA; here's a list of AAP/PSP members. One of the sponsors of RWA has received campaign contributions from Elsevier. So has the other.
Elsevier is also on the List of SOPA supporters (pdf) along with quite a lot of other publishers (academic and fiction).
What can we do about it?
If we voted in the US we could contact our representatives and ask them to vote against these bills. But they probably don't care much what foreigners think.
If this were really a free market we libraries could say "Nah, we're not going to buy from [Elsevier] this year, we'll give our money to some other science-publishing company." But publishers have a monopoly on their titles, and academics would generally have words to say if we didn't provide access to the Journal of Important Research in My Field.
But publishers don't only rely on libraries' purchasing money. They also rely on researchers (including non-US researchers, and including library researchers) providing them free articles to publish and providing them free labour in the form of peer review. So what any researcher can do is withdraw that free labour. And while we librarians are encouraging other researchers to take a stand, we can put our money where our mouth is.
- The Library Loon has compiled a list of library and information science journals published by Elsevier which librarians can strike against.
- Or you could even take the Open Access Pledge. Here's a bunch of Open Access LIS journals.
- Anyone in a position to proclaim a Journal declaration of independence gets super bonus points.
(I'll create it for fun. But to give it away I require something more.)
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