Topic: Libraries
Blog Post
September 15, 2022
Community Reflections on Ithaka S+R’s report about Digital Preservation and Curation Systems
In July 2022, we shared our findings from a broad examination of the digital preservation and curation systems landscape, drawn in part from deep dives into a number of third-party preservation platforms. Along with this research, we’ve held a series of online forums to gather feedback on the report from the community. Here, we synthesize what we heard during five invitation-only and three open webinars with 253 people, including preservation service providers, curation specialists, technologists, and more.
Past Event
March 16, 2022
Serving 500,000 New Students
Planning for Pell Restoration for Incarcerated College Students
Effective July 2023 incarcerated people will again be eligible to receive Pell grants to support their education, ending a 29 year ban. How will academic libraries support an estimated 500,000 newly eligible incarcerated students? This ACRL panel brings together practitioners and researchers from a public, academic, and college in prison program library to discuss how libraries are currently providing services, and to share strategies for providing library access to incarcerated college students. Recognizing the power and importance of…
Blog Post
September 6, 2022
Coordinating Research Data Support Services Across Campus
Announcing the Launch of a New Cohort-Based Research and Consulting Project
Data-intensive research methods are used by researchers in a wide and growing number of disciplines and are now central to the research enterprise. As these methods spread, universities are making significant investments in developing campus services to provide critical support for big data research. We are excited to announce a project that will bring together a select cohort of librarians and campus representatives to develop strategies for coordinating campus data support services.
Blog Post
August 26, 2022
Remembering Deanna Marcum
We are so terribly sad about the passing of our beloved colleague Deanna Marcum on August 16, 2022. Deanna was a humble and private person, so she would not want a lot of attention focused on her, but her impact on me and us here at ITHAKA is so profound that we must recognize and share it. I first met Deanna in 1996, when she was the president of the Council of Library…
Blog Post
August 23, 2022
Understanding Archivists
Insights from the A*CENSUS II: All Archivists Survey Report
Earlier this week, we published the findings from the A*CENSUS II: All Archivists Survey, the first national survey in 17 years designed to gather information about the demographics, education levels, job placement, salaries, and student loan debt of archivists and community memory workers. The survey also explored the extent to which this community views the archival profession as inclusive, equitable, and diverse. Nearly 6,000 archivists took the time to share their experiences through the survey.
Past Event
November 14, 2022
The Effectiveness and Durability of Digital Preservation and Curation Systems
Association of Southeastern Research Libraries Webinar
On November 14 at 2:00 – 3:00 pm ET, Oya Rieger and Roger Schonfeld will share an overview of key findings from a recent Ithaka S+R report on the changing landscape of digital preservation and the sustainability of digital preservation and curation systems, funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). Learn more about the event, hosted by the Association of Southeastern Research Libraries.
Past Event
August 27, 2022
A*CENSUS II Forum
2022 Society for American Archivists Annual Meeting
On Saturday, August 27, at 11:00 am, Makala Skinner will discuss the A*CENSUS II All Archivists Survey Report at the Society for American Archivists Annual Meeting. Joining Makala at the A*CENSUS II Forum are Beth Myers, Director of Special Collections at Smith College, Jacqualine Price Osafo, Executive Director of the Society of American Archivists, and Erin Passehl Stoddart, Michigan State University.
Research Report
August 22, 2022
A*CENSUS II All Archivists Survey Report
Five thousand, six hundred and ninety-nine archivists and memory workers across the United States took the time to share their experiences within the archives profession by completing the A*CENSUS II All Archivists Survey. The All Archivists Survey, fielded 17 years after the original A*CENSUS collected foundational data for the field, provides a measure of how far the field has come in nearly two decades as well as introduces new or expanded areas of exploration.
Blog Post
August 10, 2022
How Can Data Librarians Support Data Communities? Part Two
An Interview with Amanda Rinehart
Data communities provide social and practical incentives for scientists to voluntarily share and reuse data with colleagues. In order for data communities to emerge and grow, they need support. Information professionals, such as data librarians and research computing specialists, can advise data communities on best practices for data sharing and help them create or improve the required infrastructure, such as online repositories and metadata schemas.
Blog Post
August 9, 2022
Sustaining Scientific Data Sharing Communities
Findings from an Incubation Workshop
The sharing of research data is essential to open science, and major funders have made significant investments in building an infrastructure of domain and generalist data repositories to support data sharing. While barriers to data sharing remain a challenge, many communities of researchers actively and voluntarily share and reuse data to advance science in areas of mutual interest. Understanding the successes and challenges these “data communities” face is important to providing support for their evolving needs as they grow, and…
Research Report
August 9, 2022
Leveraging Data Communities to Advance Open Science
Findings from an Incubation Workshop Series
Several recent studies have indicated that large numbers of researchers in many STEM fields now accept the value of openly sharing research data. Yet, the actual practice of sharing data—especially in forms that comply with FAIR principles—remains a challenge for many researchers to integrate into their workflows and prioritize among the demands on their time. In many disciplines and subfields, data sharing is still mostly an ideal, honored more in the breach than in practice.
Blog Post
July 21, 2022
Gearing Up for the Ithaka S+R National Library Director Survey
This fall, Ithaka S+R will be fielding the sixth iteration of our Library Director Survey. While we ran a special cycle of the survey in 2020 to track pandemic-related decision-making among academic libraries, as well as changing perspectives on diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility and anti-racism, this upcoming survey marks the return to our triennial cycle, established in 2010. The Library Director Survey 2022 examines the strategic and leadership perspectives of…
Blog Post
July 19, 2022
Supporting the Future Discovery and Use of Digital Content
New Report
Regardless of their size, location, or the communities they serve, all heritage organizations are involved in curating digital content, whether that content is born-digital or reformatted from physical materials. There are a range of risks involved in managing this content, including technical malfunctions, media obsolescence, and organizational failures—just to name a few. In light of such threats, digital preservation to enable the discovery, access, and use of content by designated user communities over time…
Research Report
July 19, 2022
The Effectiveness and Durability of Digital Preservation and Curation Systems
In August 2020, with funding from the Institute of Library and Museum Services (IMLS), Ithaka S+R launched an 18-month research project to examine and assess the sustainability of these third-party digital preservation systems. In addition to a broad examination of the landscape, we more closely studied eight systems: APTrust, Archivematica, Arkivum, Islandora, LIBNOVA, MetaArchive, Samvera and Preservica.
Blog Post
July 14, 2022
Tracking the Research, Teaching, and Publishing Practices of Faculty Members Nationally
US Faculty Survey
We are excited to announce the publication of the US Faculty Survey 2021. Through this national survey, we have been able to track the changing research, teaching, and publishing practices of faculty members within higher education triennially since early digital transformation at the turn of the century. Against the backdrop of the global pandemic and its numerous impacts on many different facets of higher education, this eighth cycle of the survey illuminates how earlier research and instructional trends…
Research Report
July 14, 2022
Ithaka S+R US Faculty Survey 2021
The Ithaka S+R US Faculty Survey has tracked the changing research, teaching, and publishing practices of faculty members within higher education triennially since early digital transformation at the turn of the century. This project has aimed to provide actionable findings to help colleges and universities, among other relevant stakeholders such as academic libraries, learned societies, and scholarly publishers, make evidence-based decisions for their planning and strategy.
Blog Post
June 30, 2022
How Can Data Librarians Support Data Communities?
An Interview with Jordan Wrigley
Data communities provide social and practical incentives for scientists to voluntarily share and reuse data with colleagues. In order for data communities to emerge and grow, they need support. Information professionals, such as data librarians and research computing specialists, can advise data communities on best practices for data sharing and help them create or improve the required infrastructure, such as online repositories and metadata schemas. However, research scientists and information professionals rarely have structured opportunities to meet together,…
Blog Post
June 14, 2022
Looking Forward to ALA Annual 2022
A Banner Year for Librarians Serving Incarcerated Patrons
The American Library Association (ALA) will be holding its annual conference next week (June 23-28) in Washington DC, in person for the first time since 2019. The conference theme, “together again,” points to the critical importance of building and sustaining community, and I am especially excited to see that the conference schedule has multiple sessions that will provide opportunities for librarians who serve incarcerated people to connect and learn. Even in an increasingly censorius national…
Blog Post
June 13, 2022
The Library’s Role in Facilitating Users’ Experiences Navigating Computing and Data Services
An Interview with Susan Ivey, Director of the Research Facilitation Service at North Carolina State University
Since 2012, when Ithaka S+R began systematic exploration of the changing needs and practices of researchers, the stunning growth in the accessibility of large datasets and the computing power necessary to work with them has transformed research practices across disciplines. As big data methods have spread, universities have responded by expanding their research support service offerings. Libraries have been the most active players in this space, but many campus units—including information technology offices, research computing centers, and academic…
Past Event
June 24, 2022
Library Services to the Justice Involved (LSJI) Roundtable
ITHAKA is proud to be sponsoring the Library Services to the Justice Involved Roundtable at the ALA Annual Meeting in Washington, DC. When: Friday, June 24, 2022 at 10:30am – 11:30am Where: Washington Convention Center, 152B Kurtis Tanaka (Ithaka S+R), Stacy Burnett (JSTOR Labs), and Anne Ray (Reveal Digital) will be in attendance. About the roundtable:…