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Topic: Collections and preservation

Blog Post
April 22, 2021

#LibJusticePanel Recording Now Available

On April 13th, we convened a panel of leaders in the library field—Trevor A. Dawes, Patricia Hswe, and Kaetrena Davis Kendrick—to discuss newly-released results from our national survey of academic library directors on the impact of movements for racial justice on library leadership. While our study served as a jumping off point for the event, we discussed—with panelists directly and with attendees using the #LibJusticePanel hashtag—many long-standing issues related to equity, diversity, inclusion, and anti-racism. We invite you…
Blog Post
March 25, 2021

The State of the Humanities

Notes from the National Humanities Alliance Annual Meeting

Each spring, the National Humanities Alliance (NHA) organizes an annual meeting and an accompanying national advocacy day, in which representatives from most states meet with congressional offices to make the case for federal funding of the humanities. In 2020, 184 individuals representing 41 states held 287 meetings with congressional offices on Capitol Hill. Ithaka S+R is committed to supporting humanists in their work, through projects such as measuring the value of a liberal arts education, the analysis of the…
Blog Post
March 23, 2021

Teaching with Primary Sources: Pre-Pandemic Lessons for Post-COVID Futures

The second iteration in Ithaka S+R’s Teaching Support Services project investigates the teaching practices and support needs of instructors who work with primary source materials. Today we are excited to publish the project’s capstone report. Still in the pandemic but beginning to glimpse life on the other side, now is an opportune time to begin to envision not just the future, but the many potential futures…
Blog Post
March 23, 2021

Relationships Matter

How participation in the Teaching with Primary Sources Study Helped Strengthen and Develop Cross-Campus Relationships

Ithaka S+R’s capstone report on teaching with primary sources was published today. To coincide with its release, we invited one of the project’s local research teams to reflect on their experience participating in the project and how they are building on the project’s findings. Why did we want to participate in Ithaka S+R’s Teaching with Primary Sources Project?  In 2019, Ithaka S+R invited Washington & Lee University (W&L) Library to participate…
Research Report
March 23, 2021

Teaching with Primary Sources

Looking at the Support Needs of Instructors

Encounters with primary sources—historical or contemporary artifacts that bear direct witness to a specific period or event—are central to the pedagogy of many disciplines, especially in the humanities and humanistic social sciences. Their use in undergraduate instruction aligns with universities’ commitments to experiential and inquiry-based learning and library initiatives focused on media and information literacy. Reflecting the importance of the topic within higher education, “Supporting Teaching with Primary Sources” attracted the largest cohort of any Ithaka S+R program to date.
Blog Post
March 22, 2021

The Effectiveness and Durability of Digital Preservation and Curation Services

Case Studies in Sustainability

In their current form, digital preservation programs aim to manage a range of vulnerabilities and threats spanning technical malfunctions, media obsolescence, organizational failures, and copyright restrictions. The long-term stewardship of digital cultural materials depends not only on the technical resiliency of preservation systems, but also on the financial and organizational sustainability of these stewarding organizations and their service providers. With generous funding from the Institute of Library and Museum Services, we are in the midst of an 18-month research…
Research Report
March 17, 2021

National Movements for Racial Justice and Academic Library Leadership

Results from the Ithaka S+R US Library Survey 2020

Academic librarians, like so many others in the higher education and library sectors, have discussed equity, diversity, and inclusion for many years. A number of prominent initiatives have worked to address these issues across the profession and within individual institutions. Yet, libraries have struggled to make progress on these stated values, especially in meeting their goals of employee diversification. The organizing led by Black Lives Matter activists in 2020 following the murder of George Floyd sparked an increase in demands…
Past Event
April 13, 2021

Oya Y. Rieger, Danielle Cooper, and Kurtis Tanaka at ACRL 2021

Oya Y. Rieger, Danielle Cooper, and Kurtis Tanaka will present  on-demand programs during the 2021 ACRL Virtual Conference. For more information on their individual sessions, please visit this link. Oya Y. Rieger, Danielle Cooper will discuss the impacts of Big Deal cancellations on patrons. Please see the abstract below: “No deal, no problem? The Impacts of Big Deal Cancellations on Patrons” Libraries are increasingly questioning the value of their Big Deal subscriptions, leading to a number of prominent cancellations…
Blog Post
March 8, 2021

Three Questions for Ithaka S+R’s Newest Analysts

In January, we welcomed three new analysts to our team. In this interview, they reflect on what brought them to Ithaka S+R and what they hope to accomplish through their work with us. What attracted you to Ithaka S+R?  Darnell Epps: I found the work around college in prison to be quite appealing, especially the goal of advancing educational equity through technology. Although I would later matriculate and graduate from Cornell University, the first…
Past Event
February 24, 2021

Oya Rieger at NISO Plus 2021

On February 24, 2021, Oya Y. Rieger will discuss with other panelists the new model of Controlled Digital Lending at NISO Plus 2021, a global event which will  bring together the information community and facilitate conversations between  librarians, publishers, vendor organizations, and more. To register for panel, please visit this website. On February 25, 2021, Oya will also present on how digital preservation systems are developed, deployed, and sustained and will share initial…
Blog Post
January 12, 2021

Data Repository Platforms: A Primer

Last updated on March 10, 2021 While scholars generally believe in the value of sharing and preserving research datasets, many do not believe it’s worth their time to do so. And, when they do invest their time in data sharing and preservation, they tend to have a preference for doing so in an independent and self-reliant fashion. These are issues that we have not only documented through our long-standing national faculty survey but ones that we have…
Blog Post
January 4, 2021

Not Much Has (Yet) Changed

Open Access Priorities and the Impact of COVID-19

As it became clear at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic that research on the virus was greatly needed by both scholars and the general public, many publishers quickly opened up access to previously paywalled content. Open access sharing of COVID-19 data became relatively more common with organizations such as the National Institutes of Health compiling and sharing databases of articles, enabling researchers…
Blog Post
December 9, 2020

The Impact of COVID-19 on Academic Libraries

New Report

Since 2010, Ithaka S+R has fielded a triennial survey to examine the priorities and strategies of library directors. Historically, the three-year time frame has been appropriate for tracking trends. But after releasing the most recent iteration in April 2020, we recognized that both the COVID-19 pandemic and increasing movements for racial justice were having an immediate impact on academic libraries.  To examine the extent of library leaders’ prioritization of equity, diversity, inclusion, and anti-racism…
Research Report
December 9, 2020

Academic Library Strategy and Budgeting During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Results from the Ithaka S+R US Library Survey 2020

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Ithaka S+R surveyed library directors nationally to examine the strategic changes libraries have made to continue operating. A total of 638 library directors responded to questions about library leadership and decision making, COVID-19 management, budget allocations and cuts, collections acquisitions, and personnel changes. The questionnaire also focused on racial justice in light of recent protests including the Black Lives Matter movement and the related increased focus on equity, diversity, and inclusion in higher education.
Blog Post
December 3, 2020

An Updated Snapshot of the Archival Profession

Gearing up for A*CENSUS II

In 2004, the Society of American Archivists led A*CENSUS, the first broadscale survey of individual archivists in the United States in nearly thirty years. The initiative resulted in tremendous impact for the archival field. For institutions and professional organizations, the data informed the design of new curricula and the assessment of current educational offerings; for archival institutions, the opportunity to advocate for resources, set goals, and benchmark against peers; and for researchers, the…
Research Report
November 12, 2020

Ithaka S+R Art Museum Director Survey 2020

Art museums serve a unique social role in that they operate between the public sphere, the academy, the art market, and the philanthropic sector. They are invaluable resources for scholars and also serve school children, adults, seniors while engaging broadly in the cultural life of their cities. Beyond these roles, they also have the responsibility to maintain and care for a collection of objects for future generations in perpetuity. The Ithaka S+R Art Museum Director Survey 2020 examines strategy and…
Blog Post
November 11, 2020

The Relationships That Drive Campus Collaborations

How Museums and Libraries Grapple With Institutional Barriers Towards Working Together

As collecting institutions on campus, libraries and museums have a great deal to learn from each other. Libraries have excelled in adapting to digital environments, a development that has served them especially well during the COVID-19 pandemic. Academic museums have grown increasingly sophisticated as public spaces, serving as an access point for local communities and visitors of all kinds on otherwise exclusive campuses. In this way, notable competencies have emerged in the library sector towards breadth of access…
Blog Post
November 5, 2020

In the Eye of the Beholder

What’s a Digital Preservation System Anyway?

Today in celebration of the World Digital Preservation Day (WDPD), we would like to update you on a Ithaka S+R research initiative on the preservation front. Held on the first Thursday of every November, WDPD aims to promote greater awareness of the critical role preservation plays in providing enduring access to knowledge. Times like this further underscore the importance of preservation, given the imperative to archive diverse sources of information about the pandemic–not…
Blog Post
November 2, 2020

Five New Higher Ed Datasets Now Available from Ithaka S+R

Over the years, Ithaka S+R has routinely deposited datasets from our research projects with the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research, better known by its acronym of ICPSR. In doing so, this ensures that our data is not only digitally preserved, enabling long-term access, but also thoroughly processed and made available in a variety of formats for download. Several new datasets from our research projects have recently become available in our…
Blog Post
September 9, 2020

Supporting Language and Literature Scholarship in the COVID-19 Era

The latest installment in Ithaka S+R’s series of Research Support Services projects investigates the research practices and support needs of scholars in the field of languages and literature. Today we are excited to publish the project’s capstone report.  The research that underlies this report was conducted prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, we believe our findings resonate now more than ever. The field…