UKSG Serials

14 November 2008

Essential reading for publishers and librarians

Paula Younger, Exeter Health Library, and Joseph Janes, University of Washington

The November issue of Serials contains two 'Day in the Life' which are essential reading. All publishers struggle with the complexities of the UK National Health Service and Paula Younger describes some of the challenges she faces at the Exeter Health Library. For example, "Some publishers are incredulous that IP address recognition is not suitable. Few UK hospitals have VPNs. From outside the NHS, NHS England computers appear to use one IP range, even though hospitals have different physical addresses." and "The publisher appears to have changed the password three times this year without notifying us."

Joe Janes has an impossible day at the University of Washington and asks "Could libraries as we know them today be gone within a generation? Yes. Could the idea of the library develop and strengthen and become an even more vital part of the information lives of our communities and clientele? Absolutely. Most importantly of all, are we up to it?" Joe will be speaking at the 2009 UKSG Conference so read this to get your questions prepared.

The publisher's online platform: hosting the present and the future

David Burgoyne, Taylor & Francis Group

Over the past two decades the academic publisher has had to respond to the digital revolution, that of the ever-increasing growth of the Internet in terms of societal importance and technical complexity. Journal publishers began their move into this digital realm by making their content, the journal article, available electronically in parallel with the printed publication and over the years, these publishers have developed or acquired their own online platforms on which to host the electronic versions of their content.

These online platforms, their similarities and capabilities, are considered here in order to establish the current 'technological baseline' and to identify features and functionalities that may comprise a future technological baseline.

Can we subscribe to this please? Realising a core journal collection for the University of Sussex

Jane Harvell, University of Sussex

In 2005, like many HE institutions, the University of Sussex Library was confronting the problems of resourcing journal provision to support its teaching and research. These included increasing costs (with wide discrepancies of price across the subjects), the potential increase in access of content (such as NESLi2 consortia, deals etc.), greater interdisciplinary research and a requirement for more non-traditional academic titles. This was coupled with an expectation from students and staff that the Library should be responding to the explosion in availability of online journal content. It was concluded that the existing budgetary model and method of reviewing subscriptions was becoming very cumbersome and not up to the task.

It became essential to formulate an innovatory method by which the Library could be confident that its journal collections supported the teaching and research work at the University. This article will detail the steps taken in the last two years to deal with this.

How much does it cost, and who pays? The global costs of scholarly communication and the UK contribution

Branwen Hide, Research Information Network

Communicating the results of research is integral to expanding the frontiers of knowledge and understanding. How it is done has changed dramatically over the past few years, creating tension as the various groups involved in the process have come to terms with, and developed ways to exploit new technologies to e access to information resources. One of the difficulties in looking at this process has been the lack of reliable evidence about key features of the entire scholarly communications system. Therefore the Research Information Network (RIN) set out, in partnership with other key agents, to investigate the costs incurred at each stage. Since journal articles are by far the most important information outputs produced and read by researchers, the study Activities, costs and funding flows in scholarly communications (May 2008) examines the components of the process that relate to scholarly journals on both a global level and within the UK.

Dotting the DOIs and crossing the ESSNs: Librarians' support for the RAE 2008

Ann-Marie James, University of Birmingham

At the University of Birmingham, 2008 was the first time that library staff were involved in a Research Assessment Exercise (RAE), and by ensuring the completion of all record elements and the sourcing of over 4,000 items, they became an integral part of the process. This article highlights the information retrieval and metadata skills that they brought to the task, and the lasting benefits of involvement in the project, from better quality output data, to enhanced processes for the ongoing collection and validation of publication information. In addition, there is a greater awareness of the skills and expertise of librarians in this area, which will remain even more pertinent for support in the successor to the RAE, the Research Excellence Framework (REF).

Electronic journal provision and use in China: an initial study

Ian Johnson, Hong Wang and Fei Nie of Aberdeen Business School, The Library of Shijiazhuang Railway Institute and Genertec International

The growth of electronic journals (e-journals) in Western Europe and North America has been widely reported. The rapid development of e-journal publishing in China is less well known. This paper provides a brief introduction to the development of e-journals in China before examining their impact on libraries, particularly academic libraries. Several factors that may have affected the growth of e-journals are noted, including the nature of government initiatives and pedagogical methods. As well as pointing to and reviewing some of the limited literature on the development of the publishing industry, the researchers also conducted some interviews in China. To provide an initial understanding of the impact on libraries, a small survey of academic libraries was undertaken. In addition, a study of the perspectives of the academic and library staff of Shandong University, one of China's largest universities, identified specific effects on user behaviour, the library staff and the budget.

Professional development: a Danish case-study

Gitte Larsen, Royal School of Library and Information Science, Copenhagen

This case-study provides an introduction to the training activities of The Department of Continuing Education and Consultancy at the Royal School of Library and Information Science (RSLIS) in Denmark. On an annual basis, the School offers a selection of around 150 different training courses and seminars for all kinds of library staff in addition to formal continuing education. Some years ago the Department became an independent business unit within the organisation and some of the departmental and academic staff offer consultancy, with clients including public libraries, large private companies, banks, real estate companies and governmental organisations, who all suffer from similar problems. The School's expertise in knowledge organisation and related areas has proved invaluable. The article concludes with practical suggestions, based on experience, of methods for continuing professional development within the library sphere.

The EQUATOR Network: facilitating transparent and accurate reporting of health research

Iveta Simera, Centre for Statistics in Medicine, Oxford

Although billions are spent each year on health research, much of this research is not reported adequately in the literature. This seriously undermines the usability of reported findings and misleads clinicians, researchers, policymakers and, ultimately, patients. The EQUATOR Network is a new international initiative that aims to improve the clarity, completeness and transparency of scientific publications by providing resources and education relating to the reporting of health research and assisting in the development, dissemination and implementation of robust reporting guidelines.

Large-scale digitisation: the £ 22-million JISC programme and the role of libraries

Jean Sykes, London School of Economics and Political Science

The article explains JISC's ground-breaking programme of digitising large collections across a variety of formats and subjects. The first Phase is described, together with the challenges faced and significant lessons learned. The second Phase is also outlined, and the methods for selecting the successful projects explained. These two digitisation phases are providing UK higher and further education researchers and students with a very large amount of fascinating online content taken from the collections of some of the UK's major national and university libraries. The article concludes with some thoughts about a further large phase of digitisation and a discussion of the issue of sustainability into the future.

To boldly go - creating an online library for alumni

Helen Wetherill, Cranfield School of Management

The Alumni Library Online service at Cranfield University was launched in 2007, following many months of planning and negotiation between administrative departments within the University. The article looks back at the original reasons for developing the service and highlights some of the motivational factors and issues arising from this. It examines in more detail the licensing of relevant products and goes on to show how the service was put together. Finally, it looks at the lessons learned during this project and how we are acting on these to move the service forward.