Topic: Collections and preservation
Research Report
June 21, 2018
Supporting the Changing Research Practices of Asian Studies Scholars
Executive Summary Ithaka S+R’s Research Support Services Program investigates how the research support needs of scholars vary by discipline and includes reports on history, chemistry, art history, religious studies, agriculture, and public health. In 2017-2018, Ithaka S+R examined the changing research methods and practices of Asian studies scholars conducting research through U.S. institutions. This project was undertaken collaboratively with research teams at 11 academic libraries with the goal of identifying services to better support Asian studies scholars. This report…
Blog Post
April 24, 2018
Now Available: Dataset for Library Survey 2016 at ICPSR
Last year we published findings from the Library Survey 2016. We have been running this survey on a triennial basis since 2010 to examine the attitudes and behaviors of library deans and directors at not-for profit four-year academic institutions across the United States. The Library Survey report aims to provide academic librarians and higher education leaders with information about the important issues and trends that are shaping the purpose, role, and viability of…
Blog Post
April 2, 2018
Oya Y. Rieger to Join Ithaka S+R
I am thrilled to announce that digital preservation expert and scholarly communications leader Oya Y. Rieger will be joining Ithaka S+R as a Senior Advisor on our Libraries & Scholarly Communication team on July 1. Oya has worked at Cornell University for over 25 years and currently is the Associate University Librarian for Scholarly Resources & Preservation Services. When Oya joins Ithaka S+R, she will continue her affiliation with Cornell, staying on as…
Blog Post
March 16, 2018
The Services Portfolio of an Academic Library: A Framework
Academic libraries have been rethinking their strategic directions and services portfolios. I have argued recently that academic libraries face certain essential transformations, as they move beyond print general collections towards a variety of other roles. In a current project, Ithaka S+R and OCLC Research have been developing a typology of higher education institutions to explore the different ways that libraries are evolving at a service level. An essential…
Blog Post
March 13, 2018
New Thematic Areas for the 2018 US Faculty Survey
Ithaka S+R is preparing to field our seventh national US Faculty Survey on the research and teaching practices, perceptions, and needs of scholars at four-year colleges and universities. Over the past month, we have had the opportunity to speak with four outstanding project advisors who have helped inform our focus for this upcoming survey cycle. The 2018 US Faculty Survey will be designed to continue tracking critical trends in higher education…
Blog Post
March 1, 2018
Capturing Gray Literature: Lessons from Public Health
Digital technologies have made it easier for scholars to find and access information online—in fact, as the 2015 Ithaka S+R US Faculty Survey showed, nearly all scholars in the U.S. begin their searches for information using electronic resources these days. But these innovations largely focus on peer-reviewed publications and fail to capture other forms of information to an adequate extent, despite that more than 60 percent of scholars in the survey say that freely available online materials are an…
Blog Post
February 13, 2018
Gearing Up for the 2018 US Faculty Survey
Notes from ALA Midwinter
Ithaka S+R is gearing up for our seventh national US Faculty Survey on the research and teaching practices, perceptions, and needs of scholars at four year colleges and universities. Last week at ALA Midwinter, we had the opportunity to meet with library deans and directors and past local survey participants to discuss the evolution of this national survey and gather feedback on possible directions for future coverage.
Blog Post
January 12, 2018
Essential Transformations
The academic library is transforming. This diagram illustrates some of what I see as its most essential transformations. Libraries are transforming in terms of their collections – towards electronic collections, towards shared collections, towards open access, and towards distinctive holdings. Complexities abound for discovery, access, processing, and preservation. And libraries are also transforming beyond collections, towards a partnership with scholars and students in support of research, teaching, and learning workflows. This…
Blog Post
October 17, 2017
Putting the Red Light, Green Light Model Into Practice
Last week, ASERL’s John Burger facilitated a webinar about licensing scholarly content. I provided an overview of the “Red Light, Green Light” model for internal library alignment that I proposed earlier this year. John Ulmschneider of Virginia Commonwealth University reflected on some the challenges that research libraries face and endorsed proceeding with a model of increasing alignment. Participants discussed the strengths of the Red Light, Green Light model and some of the ways…
Blog Post
October 11, 2017
The Preservation of Government Publications
Transforming GPO for the 21st Century and Beyond
I was honored to be asked to testify before the House of Representatives’ Committee on House Administration, as part of a hearing on “Transforming GPO for the 21st Century and Beyond.” The hearing also included testimony from Robin Dale of the Institute of Museum and Library Services and R. Eric Petersen of the Congressional Research Service. A video of the hearing is included below along with the written testimony I submitted to the committee. Written Testimony Chairman Harper, Ranking Member Brady, and…
Blog Post
October 5, 2017
Lessons from Save America’s Treasures
New Report Provides Case Studies of 21 SAT Grantees
Every now and again it is useful to take a look at past programs and reflect on what we learned. I had the great pleasure of working on such a project over the last several months. The American Architectural Foundation asked us to assist with an evaluation of the Save America’s Treasures project that was funded by the federal government from 1999-2010 through the National Park Service and its partner agencies, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment…
Research Report
October 5, 2017
Save America’s Treasures: Impact and Lessons
As part of the National Historic Preservation Fund, Save America’s Treasures awarded nearly 500 grants between 1999 and 2010 through the National Park Service, National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services to preserve collections that embody the American story. The collections contain major parts of the nation’s artistic, social, and intellectual history. The impact of these grants has not been assessed in any comprehensive way, and one of the…
Blog Post
September 6, 2017
Understanding Library Acquisition Patterns
Large-Scale National Study Launches
Several years ago, Ithaka S+R began developing a new methodology to gather data about library acquisition patterns. Today, we are excited to announce that we have received support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to expand this into a large-scale, national study. The project, as it was originally conceived by Joseph Esposito, hoped to gain a better understanding of how distribution channels were changing. Our interest was piqued by the knowledge that libraries were often purchasing…
Issue Brief
August 16, 2017
Red Light, Green Light: Aligning the Library to Support Licensing
There is widespread frustration within the academic library community with the seemingly uncontrollable price increases of e-resources, especially of licensed bundles of scholarly journals. The scholarly communications movement has vastly expanded academic and indeed public access to scholarly content. Yet prices for certain scholarly resources continue to outpace budget increases, and librarians do not feel in control of budgets and pricing. What if libraries found ways to bring together the whole library behind the objective of stabilizing or reducing what…
Blog Post
August 7, 2017
Reflections on “Elsevier Acquires bepress”
Implications for Library Leaders
We are today in the midst of a profound reconfiguration of all sorts of information industries, impacting everything from journalism to entertainment. Libraries and scholarly information providers are not alone. Last week’s news of the bepress acquisition by Elsevier, which I first covered in a business analysis suggesting its strong strategic fit along with some potential risks, took the academic library community by storm. As the dust begins to settle, this is a…
Blog Post
June 7, 2017
How Can We Better Support Agriculture Scholars?
Today Ithaka S+R releases its in-depth report on the research activities of agriculture scholars as part of its ongoing program to explore the research activities of scholars by discipline. For Supporting the Changing Research Practices of Agriculture Scholars, we explore the breadth of agriculture research activities in U.S. higher education towards fostering information services that will support those endeavors. As the report highlights, agriculture is a particularly compelling field because of its broad scope and wider societal relevance,…
Research Report
June 7, 2017
Supporting the Changing Research Practices of Agriculture Scholars
For America’s land-grant universities, agriculture is a field of bedrock historical importance and vital current relevance. While it is sometimes perceived by the general public as a field to help small farmers modernize, today it also includes advanced genetic research, economic and policy issues around food security, and deep engagement with climate change. As a rich interdisciplinary field at the heart of so many research universities, the practices and needs of agriculture are of interest to many. For that reason,…
Blog Post
April 20, 2017
Why Are Libraries Changing Their Look?
Strategies Driving the Evolution of Academic Libraries
Yesterday, Teresa Watanabe at the Los Angeles Times reported on universities across the country redesigning libraries for the 21st century by focusing less on books and more on space. Findings from the Ithaka S+R Library Survey 2016, which queried library deans and directors across the United States on their strategy and priorities, demonstrate the ways that these libraries are evolving, and confirm much of the anecdotal evidence provided by the LA Times.[1] Throughout our national survey…
Blog Post
April 19, 2017
Why Libraries Collaborate
Findings from the US Library Survey 2016
While academic libraries in the United States have actively collaborated with each other for more than 100 years, the digital turn has brought an explosion of interest in and pursuit of cross-institutional collaboration. These include large-scale digital access and preservation initiatives like HathiTrust, print preservation and access collaborations like Scholar’s Trust and WEST, metropolitan-level efforts ranging broadly from the Chicago Collections Alliance to MARLI, unmediated borrowing such as ConnectNY, and, of burgeoning strategic importance, the collaborations enabled through cloud-based library…
Blog Post
April 10, 2017
University Futures; Library Futures
OCLC Research and Ithaka S+R Join Forces on New Research Project
OCLC Research and Ithaka S+R have studied and written extensively about the evolution of higher education and the implications of this evolution for the organizational structure and services of libraries. Today, we are announcing a new project, “University Futures; Library Futures”, in which OCLC Research and Ithaka S+R are joining forces to carry out a collaborative project on the future of academic libraries, in the context of changes in the higher…