Topic: Libraries
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
February 11, 2015
Ethnographic Studies at a Community College
For the past two years, Ithaka S+R has been working with librarians and library staff at Montgomery College, the community college of Montgomery County, Maryland, to gain a better understanding of student work practices and preferences. Launched by Tanner Wray, director of the Montgomery College Libraries, the study draws inspiration from a previous project at the University of Maryland. Last year, a library team worked with Ithaka S+R to study library use on the Rockville campus; this…
Blog Post
January 26, 2015
Nancy Fried Foster Publishes New Book
Nancy Fried Foster, with co-authors Patricia Steele, David Cronrath, and Sandra Parsons Vicchio, has a new book: The Living Library: An Intellectual Ecosystem. From the publisher’s website: The Living Library describes the evolution of one possible future for academic libraries: as laboratories for cross-disciplinary investigation. At the University of Maryland, a collaboration among the Libraries, the School of Architecture and the Department of Anthropology led to the participation of students, faculty and staff in an initiative to design a full…
Blog Post
January 5, 2015
Using Evidence in the Design of Academic Library Spaces
For decades and even centuries, a new academic library could be built just like any other—on the same architectural plans and with the same scholarly accommodations in mind. But today this is no longer possible. Recent years have brought dramatic changes to academic work practices such as reading, writing, and communication. The means, speed, and extent of scholarly collaboration have also undergone tremendous development. The traditional library model that has sufficed for so many years can no longer suit these…
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 18, 2014
Studying Sales/Acquisitions Channels
Last week, Joseph Esposito announced on The Scholarly Kitchen a new research project in partnership with Ithaka S+R to study changing channels through which publishers sell to libraries and libraries acquire from publishers. We believe that the mechanisms for book sales/acquisitions are changing to some degree, especially at smaller libraries, with real implications both for the print and digital marketplace. We are thrilled to be launching this project in partnership with Joe, and grateful to the support of The…
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
November 13, 2014
Information Literacy and Research Practices
Yesterday, ACRL released the third draft of the Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education and called upon the community to provide additional feedback. Against this backdrop, our latest issue brief is particularly timely. In “Information Literacy and Research Practices,” Nancy Fried Foster, Ithaka S+R’s senior anthropologist, demonstrates how “researchers in the wild” are adhering to many of the goals described in the draft Framework. While recognizing that the move away from the Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education, in place…
Issue Brief
November 13, 2014
Information Literacy and Research Practices
On November 12, 2014, ACRL released the third draft of the Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education and called upon the community to provide additional feedback. Against this backdrop, this issue brief is particularly timely. In "Information Literacy and Research Practices," Nancy Fried Foster, Ithaka S+R's senior anthropologist, demonstrates how "researchers in the wild" are adhering to many of the goals described in the draft Framework. While recognizing that the move away from the Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education, in…
Blog Post
October 29, 2014
Notes on Columbia’s Book History Colloquium
Yesterday, I attended Columbia University’s Book History Colloquium, which is sponsored by the Rare Book and Manuscript Library, where Andrew Stauffer, associate professor of English at the University of Virginia, spoke about “Traces in the Stacks: 19th-Century Book Use and the Future of Library Collections.” Observing the trend in academic and research libraries towards moving tangible collections offsite, and sometimes de-accessioning them, in favor of digital versions, Stauffer is concerned about the implications for scholarship. Stauffer offered a richly illustrated…
Blog Post
October 10, 2014
Notes from the ARL Fall Forum
The future of the monograph is of great interest to many humanists, scholarly publishers, and academic librarians. Last year, I wrote an issue brief, Stop the Presses: Is the monograph headed toward an e-only future?, that suggested the monograph’s digital future would prove to be much more complicated than what has been experienced thus far for journals. Yesterday, ARL’s fall forum, provocatively titled Wanted Dead or Alive – The Scholarly Monograph, served to confirm that the possible transition…
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…
Issue Brief
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…
Blog Post
August 14, 2014
Notes from the Library Assessment Conference in Seattle
The Library Assessment Conference took place last week in Seattle, a valuable forum for those gathering and using evidence in support of library management and planning. I attended, with my colleague Alisa Rod, Ithaka S+R’s surveys coordinator. The program included a diverse set of presentations on topics from information literacy to space planning. Ithaka S+R’s local surveys were also featured in a number of sessions on the program. Developing the Ithaka S+R Student Survey Alisa and Heather Gendron,…
Blog Post
August 14, 2014
The Role of Assessment in Libraries
Last week at the Library Assessment Conference in Seattle, I gave a talk on “Vision, Alignment, Impediments, Assessment.” As academic libraries face a variety of strategic issues, I argued, they need to consider how to implement evidence-based decision making processes more broadly in their institutions. There’s a significant role for the assessment community in building such processes, and as libraries continue to invest in assessment, they have the opportunity to use data to address their challenges. I reviewed some…