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Topic: Libraries

Issue Brief
January 22, 2020

Copyright Education in Libraries, Archives, and Museums: A 21st Century Approach

A Summary Report of Roundtable Discussions at Columbia University

On July 11-12th, 2019, with the generous financial support of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and together with project partners Ithaka S+R and LYRASIS, Copyright Advisory Services at Columbia University Libraries held roundtable discussions as a second phase of research to determine how to structure and implement a professional development copyright education initiative for cultural heritage professionals working in libraries, archives, and museums. In particular, the purpose of these discussions was to examine whether there might be a way to…
Past Event
February 19, 2020

Data Communities: Empowering Researcher-Driven Data Sharing in the Sciences

Danielle Cooper at the International Data Curation Conference

On Wednesday, February 19, Danielle Cooper is presenting on “Data Communities: Empowering Researcher-Driven Data Sharing in the Sciences” at the International Data Curation Conference in Dublin, Ireland. For more information and to register, please see the conference website.
Past Event
March 12, 2020

The Data Disconnect

Kurtis Tanaka at the 2020 RDAP Summit

On Thursday, March 12, Kurtis Tanaka is presenting on “The Data Disconnect: How Changing Industry Data Sharing Policies Impact Business Research and Pedagogy” at the Research Data Access & Preservation Association’s 2020 Summit in Santa Fe, New Mexico. For more information and to register, please see the conference website. About the presentation Business represents the most popular undergraduate major in the United States and is a field that heavily relies on data for both research and instruction. This reliance…
Past Event
March 3, 2020

Shaping Up Services: Developing Prototypes for Student Success

Melissa Blankstein at the Educause ELI Annual Meeting

On Tuesday, March 3, Melissa Blankstein is presenting a poster on “Shaping Up Services: Developing Prototypes for Student Success,” at the Educause ELI Annual Meeting in Bellevue, Washington. For more information and to register, please visit the conference website. About the poster What methodologies can higher education institutions employ to develop new services that promote student success? This poster will share a data-driven approach recently implemented across a cohort of colleges: concept testing. Through concept testing, service providers can…
Past Event
February 20, 2020

Student Success Information Interventions: Helping Students Navigate College Services and Resources

Christine Wolff-Eisenberg at DREAM 2020

On Thursday, February 20, Christine Wolff-Eisenberg will be presenting on a panel, “Student Success Information Interventions: Helping Students Navigate College Services and Resources,” at DREAM 2020 in National Harbor, Maryland. Christine will be joined on the panel by Jean Amaral (Borough of Manhattan Community College), Christie Flynn (Pierce College), and Elizabeth Jardine (LaGuardia Community College). For more information and to register, please visit the conference website. About the panel Research recently conducted across seven community colleges has demonstrated the…
Blog Post
January 14, 2020

What Is Humanities Research Now?

Roundtable at the Modern Language Association 2020 Convention

Today, the discipline of modern languages and literatures faces both challenges and opportunities. Although humanities research and the liberal arts education model have come under public scrutiny, new methodologies and ways of disseminating information, including “public humanities” and “digital humanities,” hold out promise for reinvigoration of the discipline. On Friday, January 9, I had the pleasure of joining six participants from Ithaka S+R’s Supporting Research in Languages and Literature project, sponsored by the…
Blog Post
January 8, 2020

Quiet Spaces, Kids On Campus, and Academic Libraries

College students often crave quiet space for completing their coursework. Many have complex lives with various professional, personal, and academic demands — long commutes, multiple jobs, roommates, children, etc. The campus library is a place — and sometimes the only place — they can go for quiet, distraction-free space. It can be their respite from an otherwise noisy set of activities. Over the weekend,…
Past Event
January 10, 2020

Rebecca Springer at the Modern Language Association Annual Convention

On Friday, January 10, Rebecca Springer is taking part in a panel discussion on “What Is Humanities Research Now?” at the Modern Language Association Annual Convention in Seattle. She’ll be joined on the panel by Amanda L. Watson (New York U), John Tofanelli (Columbia U), Matthew Roberts (U of Illinois, Urbana), Ashley Champagne (Brown U), Darby Fanning (U of Utah), and Julie Frick Wade (MLA). The Modern Language Association’s Mary Onorato is moderating. For more information, please see the…
Blog Post
December 12, 2019

Teaching Business: New Report Explores the Needs of Business Faculty

Today Ithaka S+R is releasing the first report in a new program focused on supporting teaching practices. In it, we explore the needs of faculty teaching undergraduate business. We started with business as it is consistently one of the most popular majors in the United States, and understanding the needs of faculty in this field can have a large impact on undergraduate teaching and learning. Informed by interviews with 158 business…
Research Report
December 12, 2019

Teaching Business

Looking at the Support Needs of Instructors

Business represents the most popular undergraduate major at American colleges and universities and was seen as the ideal discipline to begin with, especially as the potential number of students to be positively impacted is correspondingly large. The goal of this report, therefore, is to provide actionable findings for organizations, institutions, and professionals who support the teaching practices of business educators. This report describes the teaching practices of business instructors, both those that are common to all college level instruction as…
Blog Post
December 10, 2019

Perspectives on the 2018 US Faculty Survey in Against the Grain

Every three years when we release findings from our national faculty surveys, we receive a plethora of reactions and responses to the results. There was no exception when we released the 2018 results in conjunction with the ACRL conference in April 2019. While these high-level quantitative results offer strong evidence toward understanding faculty practices and perspectives, particularly for tracking change over time, many who work in academic libraries, learned societies, and…
Blog Post
December 5, 2019

What Are the Larger Implications of Ex Libris Buying Innovative?

Earlier today, news began leaking out that Ex Libris will purchase Innovative Interfaces, one of its largest competitors. The deal, which is expected to close in early 2020, further cements Ex Libris as the leader in the library systems marketplace and can be expected to put added pressure on OCLC. It will also raise concerns about Ex Libris’s dominant market position.  Library Systems Ex Libris’s core business is in library systems,…
Blog Post
December 5, 2019

Making the CCASSE for Support Services

When we interviewed dozens of community college students about their challenges and unmet needs, many reported struggling with navigating college resources. When we subsequently heard from over 10,000 students via survey about the services they need to achieve their vision of success, the overwhelming majority responded positively to a service centered around helping students navigate these resources.  Last year, we embarked on the…
Research Report
December 5, 2019

Organizing Support for Success

Community College Academic and Student Support Ecosystems

The Community College Academic and Student Support Ecosystems (CCASSE) project examines how academic and student support services at not-for-profit associate-degree granting colleges are organized, funded, and staffed, and how these services can most effectively advance student success. In spring 2019, we surveyed 249 chief academic and student affairs officers at community colleges across the United States on success measures, services offered, resource challenges and constraints, and vision for future service provision.
Past Event
December 9, 2019

Data Sharing from the Ground Up

Danielle Cooper and Rebecca Springer at CNI

On Monday, December 9, 2019, at 2:30 pm, Danielle Cooper and Rebecca Springer will present on “Data Sharing from the Ground Up: Building Data Communities” at the CNI Fall Meeting in Washington DC. For more information and to register for the conference, please see the CNI website. Abstract There is a growing consensus that research can progress more quickly, more innovatively, and more rigorously when scholars share data with each other. Policies and supports for data sharing…
Past Event
November 16, 2019

Danielle Cooper and Kurtis Tanaka at the National Conference on Higher Education in Prison

On Saturday, November 16, ITHAKA is hosting a breakfast session  to share an update on “Providing Offline Access to High-Quality Library Resources in Prisons”at the 2019 National Conference on Higher Education in Prison in St. Louis, Missouri. With support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, in 2019 ITHAKA launched an initiative to help improve higher education in prison and reduce barriers for student research. In this session, Danielle Cooper and Kurtis Tanaka will provide an update on the project’s research…
Blog Post
November 12, 2019

Taking the Temperature on Open Access Among UC Berkeley Faculty

In fall 2018, UC Berkeley fielded the Ithaka S+R local faculty survey, concurrent with our national initiative. In this post, Chan Li, Assessment Program Librarian, shares how data from this survey can be used for decision-making in supporting scholarly communication efforts of faculty members. — Christine Wolff-Eisenberg To promote a publishing ecosystem where the impact of research can be maximized by removing readership barriers, the UC Berkeley Library is making many efforts to push for open access publishing,…
Past Event
November 19, 2019

The Future of Content Distribution: Licensing or Leakage

Roger Schonfeld Moderates SSP Webinar

On Tuesday, November 19, at 11:00 am, Roger Schonfeld is moderating an SSP webinar, “The Future of Content Distribution: Licensing or Leakage.” Speakers for the webinar include Jonathan Austin, Director of Product Management at Springer Nature, Todd Toler, Vice President of Product Strategy & Partnerships at John Wiley & Sons, and Elaine Westbrooks, Vice Provost for University Libraries & University Librarian at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. For more information about the webinar and to register, please…
Past Event
November 14, 2019

The Unfunded Mandate of Compliance

Oya Y. Rieger at NFAIS Foresight Event

On Thursday, November 14, Oya Y. Rieger is speaking on “The Unfunded Mandate of Compliance” at the NFAIS Foresight Event, “Open Access: The Role and Impact of Preprint Servers,” in Washington DC. Her talk will take place at 2:00 pm. For more information and to register, please see the event website. Abstract During the last decade, we’ve witnessed the emergence of public access policies by a range of governmental and private funding agencies to open up scholarly outputs that…
Blog Post
November 6, 2019

A Methodology for Testing Service Concepts

New Issue Brief

As academic libraries continue to evolve beyond a focus on collections, their leaders have long recognized the importance of developing new services that add value for learners, instructors, researchers, and other stakeholders. Sometimes, the demand for new services is self-evident, but in other cases the library must develop services speculatively and in a competitive environment. In these cases, planning and assessment tools can be of tremendous value in allowing library leaders to focus their new service initiatives most…