Author: James M. Day

Open Access Week 2015

Open Access Week

International Open Access Week starts today and runs from October 19 – 25, 2015.  For all of the details, visit www.openaccessweek.org.

Ways to Participate

Many organizations which embrace and promote open access are sponsoring events to encourage participation in open access resources.  Here are just a few of them.

TwitterFollow on Social Media

 

Follow and use the Twitter hashtag #OAWeek.

Open Access Week Wikipedia Edit-a-thon

WikipediaSPARC is partnering with Wikipedia to organize an Open Access Week Edit-a-thon with the purpose to improve open access-related content on Wikipedia.  “Specifically, we hope to improve already existing Open Access-related pages, to create new content where it needs to be added, and to translate Open Access-related pages into languages where they don’t yet exist.” Sign up to participate at The Wikimedia Library.

Learn about Paperity

PaperityPaperity is a “multidisciplinary aggregator of Open Access Journals and Papers” containing more than 2,200 journals and 400,000 articles.  It contains full-text articles from peer-reviewed scholarly sources.  Visit Paperity at paperity.org.

Subscribe to the C&RL RSS Feeds

College & Research Libraries is now an open access journal.  There is still a subscription fee for the print issues, but you can access the online versions for free.  Access the C&RL RSS Feeds page at crl.acrl.org/rss.

Get an ORCID iD

ORCID Open Access Week iD RegisterDo you have an ORCID iD?  ORCID stands for Open Researcher and Contributor ID and is a unique 16-digit number which distinguishes you from other researchers in online resources.  Register for an ORCID iD at orcid.org/register.

Bake Some Cookies

Think open access only applies to online resources?  You can bake your very own cookies in the shape of the open access logo with a cookie cutter printed from your 3D printer using some open access cookie cutter printer files.  The scalable files are in .stl and .dae format and were created by Chip Wolfe from Hunt Library at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.  Download the open access cookie cutter files.

Open Access Cookie Cutter

Electronic Resources on Social Media

Social Media Icons

Follow or friend your favorite electronic resource websites on three major social networking sites: Facebook, Google+, and Twitter.  The database vendors often use these outlets to give updates, offer free access trials, and announce downtime.

Facebook

Google+

Twitter

If we are missing one of your favorites, please let us know in the comment section.

Creating the 21st-Century Academic Library Book Series

Leading the 21st-Century Academic Library: Successful Strategies for Envisioning and Realizing Preferred Futures Enhancing Teaching and Learning in the 21st-Century Academic Library: Successful Innovations That Make a Difference Cutting-Edge Research in Developing the Library of the Future: New Paths for Building Future Services

A new professional book series for academic librarians has been published.  The volumes were edited by Bradford Lee Eden and contain the knowledge and experience of academic librarian contributors.  [Disclosure: I co-wrote a chapter but receive no royalties from the sale.]

The Creating the 21st-Century Academic Library series contains five titles so far:

  1. Leading the 21st-Century Academic Library: Successful Strategies for Envisioning and Realizing Preferred Futures
  2. Enhancing Teaching and Learning in the 21st-Century Academic Library: Successful Innovations That Make a Difference
  3. Cutting-Edge Research in Developing the Library of the Future: New Paths for Building Future Services
  4. Creating Research Infrastructures in the 21st-Century Academic Library: Conceiving, Funding, and Building New Facilities and Staff
  5. Partnerships and New Roles in the 21st-Century Academic Library: Collaborating, Embedding, and Cross-Training for the Future

The titles are available as ebooks and print books.

Creating Research Infrastructures in the 21st-Century Academic Library: Conceiving, Funding, and Building New Facilities and Staff Partnerships and New Roles in the 21st-Century Academic Library: Collaborating, Embedding, and Cross-Training for the Future

Consolidation of the Library Vendors

ProQuest EBSCO OCLC

With two recent announcements of mergers of well-known library vendors—ProQuest acquired Ex Libris and Bibliotheca bought 3M Library Systems—the number of independent library vendors is shrinking.

ProQuest is now a provider of research databases (ProQuest Central and others), ebooks (ebrary, EBL, and MyiLibrary), discovery tools (Summon and now Primo), link resolvers (Serials Solutions and now SFX), library management system (Alma and Intota), and print books (with the recent purchase of Coutts).

EBSCO is the next largest vendor in this shrinking field.  EBSCO offers research databases (EBSCOhost), ebooks (EBSCO eBooks and Audiobooks), a discovery tool (EBSCO Discovery Service), a link resolver (LinkSource), and print books (YBP Library Services).  EBSCO does not offer an ILS or LMS and one has to wonder if the company will go looking to acquire one.

OCLC is the third major competitor in the library services arena. OCLC does not provide content like ProQuest and EBSCO.  However, they offer a discovery tool (WorldCat) and a modern library management system (WorldShare Management Services).  OCLC also offers popular services such as a proxy service (EZproxy), interlibrary loan service (ILLiad), digital collection management tool (CONTENTdm), and a virtual reference system (QuestionPoint).

If your library is looking for a comprehensive library management / discovery service / link resolver solution, you now have three vendors.

Further Reading

American Libraries: ProQuest to Acquire Ex Libris

Globes: ProQuest to buy Israeli co Ex Libris for $500m

Ithaka S+R: What Are the Larger Implications of ProQuest’s Acquisition of Ex Libris?

23 Mobile Things by NEFLIN

23 Mobile Things by NEFLIN

On January 12, 2015 the Northeast Florida Library Information Network (NEFLIN) posted the first mobile thing (app) in their “23 Mobile Things” program.  For the next six months NEFLIN introduced participants to one or more mobile apps each week. Participants learned about the app through text or videos, downloaded the app and experimented with it, and then answered a few questions about it.  NEFLIN awarded Apple or Google gift cards to those who completed all 23 things by June 30, 2015.

The series started with common social media apps such as Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and Instagram.  They moved on to audio apps such as Spotify and SoundCloud.  Of course, reading apps were covered including Flipboard, Goodreads, Google Play Books, and iBooks. Video editing, presentation, and even game apps were covered.

The official program has ended, but you can see the list of mobile apps and learn about each one.  Visit 23things.neflin.org/23-things.

NEFLIN’s 23 Mobile Things was based on the 23 Mobile Things course by Jan Holmquist, Mylee Joseph, and Kathryn Barwick.  That program was based on Helene Blowers’ 23 Things on Learning 2.0.

23 Mobile Things Icons