Topic: Libraries
Blog Post
December 2, 2015
A Glimpse of the Future at ITHAKA’s Next Wave Conference
Last month ITHAKA hosted The Next Wave conference. We brought together people from both inside and outside the academy to discuss issues important to the future of education. Our broad theme was data, value, and privacy. As is always the case with ITHAKA meetings, we spent as much time projecting technology’s impact on the future as we did reflecting on how it is affecting us today. In this post I will share a few of the highlights and thought-provoking…
Blog Post
November 30, 2015
Survey Administration Best Practices: Sending Invitation and Reminder Messages
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
November 18, 2015
Understanding the Role of the Office of Scholarly Communication
Scholarly communication has become a standard feature of academic and research libraries, and a number of research libraries have established an office of scholarly communication as one of its organizational units. Harvard Library established an Office of Scholarly Communication (OSC) when the Faculty of Arts and Sciences passed the open access policy that would be followed by the other schools and institutes of Harvard. The OSC was meant to help the Harvard schools implement open access. The provost’s office at…
Research Report
November 18, 2015
Office of Scholarly Communication
Scope, Organizational Placement, and Planning in Ten Research Libraries
The phrase “scholarly communication” appears often in the description of library roles and responsibilities, but the function is still new enough that it takes different forms in different institutions. There is no common understanding of where it fits into the library’s organizational structure. This landscape review of offices of scholarly communication grows out of research originally conducted by Ithaka S+R for the Harvard Library. Dr. Sarah Thomas, Vice President for the Harvard Library, University Librarian and Roy E. Larsen Librarian…
Blog Post
November 10, 2015
The Art of Observation
The hallmark method of cultural anthropology is participant observation—total immersion in a social milieu and simultaneous scrutiny of it from an outsider perspective. In a fieldwork project, participant observation may last for months or even years and will usually entail careful documentation in notes, recordings, images, and artifacts. The anthropologist analyzes and interprets observational and other data to create a written ethnography, a document about a culture or society. The anthropological kit also includes a far simpler tool: just being…
Blog Post
November 3, 2015
The Shiny New Thing
As libraries make the transition from print to digital, needs arise that are not easily accommodated in the traditional organizational structure. Librarians are generally inclusive, and they have been generous in their acceptance of the organizations that spring up to fill gaps. In the post-World War II era, numerous resource-sharing and interlibrary loan programs were created to make it easier for researchers to gain access to the library materials they needed. National microfilming programs were launched to provide broad access…
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
November 2, 2015
That Library Sound
Library Background Noise for Relaxation has over 150,000 views on YouTube. The hour-long audio is, as described by its creator, “just a long audio clip of some background white noise from my recent trip to the library…lots of page flipping, typing, sighing and people doing things near by.” A similar offering on YouTube, Relaxing Sounds – 60 minutes of Library Ambiance, has over 120,000 views. Coffitivity, an online service that offers soundtracks to help boost productivity while…
Blog Post
October 26, 2015
Announcing Three New Projects
Research Support Services Projects in Agriculture, Asian Studies, and Religious Studies
Ithaka S+R is adjusting and expanding our studies of the research practices and support needs of scholars in individual fields of study to conduct them in partnerships with libraries and learned societies. Libraries that participate will learn a great deal about the needs of their scholars, while providing a valuable professional development opportunity for their librarians. Through this partnership, we will generate a richly illustrated description of the field’s practices and needs and make actionable recommendations for how libraries…
Blog Post
October 26, 2015
Research That Has Impact Institutionally and Beyond
In recent years, Ithaka S+R has expanded our survey research program to have an impact both institutionally as well as nationally. Beginning this winter, we are making a similar expansion and transition for our qualitative projects that study the research practices and support needs of scholars in individual fields of study. Over the past four years, Ithaka S+R has made a substantial transition in our survey research program. Our sector-wide surveys of higher education institutions…
Blog Post
October 22, 2015
New Issue Brief by Neil Rambo Explores Research Data Management
Neil Rambo, director of the Health Sciences Library at NYU Langone Medical Center, graciously agreed to describe the development of data management services at his library for our issue brief series. “Research Data Management: Roles for Libraries” is his account of how NYU’s Health Sciences Library established this relatively new service and the challenges the library still faces. The library began with one central question: “how can libraries and librarians contribute to the advancement of the…
Issue Brief
October 22, 2015
Research Data Management: Roles for Libraries
Background: the emerging role of data management in research libraries I first became aware of research data management as a frontier area of expertise for libraries and librarians almost 10 years ago. Tony Hey was one of the first to popularize the term ‘e-science’ and the idea that librarians had a role to play in managing research data.[1] This call might have stirred little interest at another time. But at least two things were happening around then that…
Blog Post
October 14, 2015
Survey Administration Best Practices
Crafting Effective Communications
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
October 8, 2015
Planning and Policy in Library Design
Earlier this year, Ithaka S+R worked with a team at the University of Nevada, Reno, to develop a better understanding of the kinds of group study facilities students need in order to work on collaborative projects and engage in other voluntary and assigned team-based activities. The objective of the project was to develop an understanding of how undergraduates do group work and the spaces and facilities that would be most helpful. Leaders at UNR’s libraries planned to use the results…
Research Report
October 8, 2015
Exploring Group Study at the University of Nevada, Reno
Libraries continually struggle with how to make the best use of their space, and collaborative study spaces have been added to support the perceived requirements for group projects. The University of Nevada, Reno (UNR) wanted to know what kind of spaces students actually need to do their work, and brought in Ithaka S+R’s senior anthropologist, Nancy Fried Foster, to help them explore this question. Using the methods of design anthropology, collecting artifacts and conducting interviews, the Ithaka S+R and UNR…
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
September 8, 2015
On Non-Traditional College Students, Libraries and “Family Space”
The majority of college students are now what are considered “non-traditional,” meaning, they are over the age of 24, commute to campus, work part-time or full-time, are financially dependent, and/or have children. As a previous Ithaka S+R blog post by Jessie Brown highlights, this demographic trend necessitates policy shifts that better reflect that non-traditional students are now the “typical” students in higher education. Academic libraries are one such area of higher education where policies must shift to better accommodate non-traditional…