Topic: Discovery and access
Blog Post
December 18, 2015
When Academic Library Budgets Make the National News
The issue of rising journal subscription costs in a climate where academic library budgets are primarily flat or in a state of decline, is well-documented and oft-discussed amongst librarians (see, for example, these articles in Library Journal and PLOS One). Yet it is debatable the extent to which academics and students are engaged with this issue. And the possibility of the public-at-large caring? Almost unthinkable. Meanwhile, in Canada, the national public broadcaster recently ran three stories on academic…
Blog Post
November 2, 2015
The Consistency of Data
Data-driven decision making brings with it—for policy makers, advocates, businesses—the promise of objectivity. In some cases, this can instead be the illusion of infallibility. We don’t doubt our ability to make smart decisions with well-analyzed data, but what about the origins of that data? Over this year, Joseph Esposito, Roger Schonfeld and I have been conducting a research project studying the acquisitions of academic libraries, towards the end of better understanding various trends among vendors, publishers, disciplines and formats.
Blog Post
October 6, 2015
What Are the Larger Implications of ProQuest’s Acquisition of Ex Libris?
Today brings news of a major consolidation in the library vendor marketplace, with ProQuest acquiring Ex Libris. This is just the latest of an intense round of acquisitions in the vendor/intermediary marketplace and in addition to some thoughts on this particular deal it is a good moment to reflect more broadly on what is taking place. ProQuest operates a content platform, which includes many types of content from journals and books to newspapers and special collections. Based in part…
Blog Post
October 1, 2015
Reflecting on Reference and Other Library User Support Services
Academic libraries have provided user support services through a variety of modalities. The circulation desk would work on access issues for the print general collection, the interlibrary loan office would obtain needed materials outside the collection, reference librarians would help with research questions, liaisons would provide more proactive services on an academic department basis, and a variety of librarians would provide various types of instruction. Academic libraries have typically taken a variety of steps to rethink each of these service…
Blog Post
September 14, 2015
The Ithaka S+R Local Faculty Survey at Virginia Commonwealth University
Focusing on Strategic Investment
During a time of rapid, evolutionary change at Virginia Commonwealth University, John Ulmschneider, University Librarian, turned to the Ithaka S+R Local Faculty Study in spring 2014 to inform decision-making and strategic planning for the VCU Libraries. VCU had recently developed a new university-wide strategic plan and the Libraries were focused on working within this framework to understand and support faculty and their research. As Ulmschneider explained, “We needed good data to help us understand our current faculty even as we expect their…
Blog Post
September 10, 2015
Education for Academic Information Professionals
Many MLS programs have in recent years been organized as parts of schools that also offer degrees in information, communication, or education. This week brought news of the proposal that the Graduate School of Library and Informations Science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign be revamped as the School of Information Sciences. In many cases, the programs are not blended strategically but rather managed largely separately. Library education programs typically offer a program of study that is designed for all…
Blog Post
August 25, 2015
Survey Administration Best Practices: First Steps
Since 2000, Ithaka S+R has run the US Faculty Survey, which tracks the evolution of faculty members’ research and teaching practices against the backdrop of increasing digital resources and other systemic changes in higher education. Starting in 2012, Ithaka S+R has offered colleges and universities the opportunity to field the faculty survey, and a newly added student survey, at their individual institutions to gain better insight into the perceptions of their faculty members and students. More than 70…
Blog Post
May 4, 2015
Defining Institutional Boundaries
Academic library systems, such as ILS, proxy, and content management system like LibGuides, are typically selected, managed, and organized on an institutional basis. Even when systems are increasingly cloud-based or hosted elsewhere, there is an institutional logic inherent in them. There are often good reasons for this logic, but I would like to use the example of discovery to raise questions about where this approach is effective and where it poses limitations. Thinking about the researcher’s discovery starting point,…
Blog Post
April 17, 2015
The Vital Need to Link Discovery and Access
Over the past few weeks, there has been an interesting set of discussions about whether the Liberian part of the Ebola outbreak this winter was foretold and therefore could have been stopped earlier. Writing an op-ed in the New York Times, several researchers noted that they recently “stumbled across” an article indicating the reasonable likelihood that Liberia would be faced with cases of Ebola, which turned out to have been one of several studies predicting Liberia being in the…
Blog Post
March 26, 2015
Meeting Researchers Where They Start
Streamlining Access to Scholarly Resources
Researchers today have access to incredible amounts of digital content as well as to a suite of tools to aid in their discovery of these academic resources. Yet, as Roger Schonfeld describes in our most recent issue brief, “the researcher’s discovery-to-access workflow is much more difficult than it should be.” “Instead of the rich and seamless digital library for scholarship that they need,” Schonfeld argues, “researchers today encounter archipelagos of content bridged by infrastructure that is insufficient and often…
Issue Brief
March 26, 2015
Meeting Researchers Where They Start
Streamlining Access to Scholarly Resources
Instead of the rich and seamless digital library for scholarship that they need, researchers today encounter archipelagos of content bridged by infrastructure that is insufficient and often outdated. These interconnections could afford opportunities to improve discovery and access. But in point of fact, the researcher’s discovery-to-access workflow is much more difficult than it should be.[1] …researchers’ expectations are being set not by improvements relative to the past but rather by reference to consumer internet services A different paper…
Blog Post
March 2, 2015
A User-Centric Approach to Privacy for the Academic Library
The shift of library services to online interfaces has led to an explosion in the potential for data gathering, and also to a growing conversation about how the data should and could be used. This past year has witnessed a strong dialogue about libraries’ responsibility for maintaining the privacy and security of the data. Leading experts have pointed out the astonishing number of ways that privacy and security are unintentionally compromised in libraries’ everyday service environment. Protecting the privacy…
Blog Post
February 27, 2015
On Library Market Share
Like all businesses and service providers, libraries compete, explicitly or implicitly, with other entities for market share. At the heart of this idea is that library leaders should care about the share of user needs they are fulfilling, even if the language of business is not always the most comfortable for them. Take content delivery–to what extent do users turn to Amazon over the library for books, and how is this changing with the development of ebooks? If we see…
Blog Post
December 31, 2014
A Look Back at Ithaka S+R’s 2014 Publications
Happy New Year! Ithaka S+R published a record number of research reports and issue briefs in 2014 on two main themes: educational transformation and libraries & scholarly communications. As the New Year begins, we would like to share these with you once more, and we hope that they provide useful guidance for your work in 2015. As always, we welcome your feedback and questions. Use the comments form below or send us a tweet @IthakaSR. Educational Transformation:…
Blog Post
December 10, 2014
What Role(s) Should the Library Play in Support of Discovery?
This week’s CNI meeting featured a variety of thought-provoking sessions on the digital issues facing academic libraries today, including privacy and preservation. I facilitated a session on Monday afternoon on discovery, using my recent issue brief on the topic to ask the question, “What Role(s) Should the Library Play in Support of Discovery?” While participants shared mixed views about the value of indexed discovery services at their institutions, with some expressing the sense of their real value especially…
Blog Post
November 25, 2014
Shaking It Up!
Yesterday, I attended a symposium sponsored by Digital Science, Harvard, Microsoft, and MIT, called “Shaking It Up: How to thrive in – and change – the research ecosystem.” I made the trip to attend this event in person because I am focusing some attention on serving the sciences right now, and the sessions featured a remarkable array of mostly new initiatives in support of scientific research and scholarly communication. The opening keynote featured an appropriately pointed but ultimately inspirational…
Blog Post
November 20, 2014
The Spaces Between
Notes from the Charleston Conference
At the Charleston Conference, Ithaka S+R hosted a session on “The Spaces Between,” which was intended to explore our communities’ needs for research that fall between the traditional boundaries of library, publisher, and vendor. As I mentioned in my opening remarks, these spaces can prove themselves to be cracks into which important issues fall unnoticed, or opportunities to build connections between communities with ultimately many shared interests. Our panel consisted of Joe Esposito, an independent publishing consultant, Susan Stearns,…
Blog Post
November 16, 2014
The Meaning of Collections
Ownership, Access, and the Scholarly Ecosystem
A couple of weeks ago, while attending the Harvard Library Visiting Committee meeting, I participated in an amazing discussion of collection development strategies. I heard Harvard librarians saying that Harvard can no longer collect everything, indeed, shouldn’t collect everything, and needed to build strong collaborative relationships so that Harvard scholars and students would be able to find the resources they need to do their work. This view—access is more important than ownership—is not new among other academic and research libraries,…
Blog Post
October 1, 2014
Discovery and the Library’s Role
Last week, my new issue brief on discovery came out. Since its release, there has been some very interesting discussion on the topic. I’ve tried to bring together some of the commentary from Twitter and blogs here and to suggest some future directions these imply for our community. A point of departure for the paper is an analysis of library directors’ responses to the strongly worded statement “It is strategically important that my library be seen by its users…
Blog Post
September 24, 2014
Does Discovery Still Happen in the Library?
Roles and Strategies for a Shifting Reality
In the age of the ubiquitous single search box, what role do libraries play in the discovery of scholarly resources? In this Issue Brief, Roger Schonfeld explores how the vision that the library should be the starting point for research—a vision many library directors hold—is often in conflict with the practices of faculty and students. As users migrate to other starting points, librarians could invest in ways to bring them back. But there is also an opportunity for librarians to re-think…