I'm setting up a summer project and it suddenly occurred to me - maybe someone already did this. I want to compile lists of big-name journals in disciplines we teach and what the OA policy is for each (preprint, postprint, PDF, noway nowhow, unknown). Has anyone already compiled this?
I got this idea from a presenter at the Michigan Library Association academic libraries conference. Helps show faculty that yes, you can. Except when you can't.
- barbara fister
I did a short list of (gold) OA vs subscription journals for Chemistry once. I think I grabbed the top x by impact factor from SciMago, then looked each one up in DOAJ - was basically to show that there are a bunch of high impact OA places to publish in. The obvious flaw to the approach was that it wasn't very balanced in terms of subdisciplines. Plus it was manual so doing it for lots of disciplines would be a nuisance.
- Deborah Fitchett
I may have students work on this over the summer. If it's not already out there, I'd be happy to share it when it's compiled.
- barbara fister
If I was asked to co-chair the Invited Papers track at ACRL 2015 and was asked for recommendations of who might be a good other co-chair, who should I suggest from your perspective? I'm thinking someone working in metadata, digital publishing, etc. to bring a perspective different than mine.
"On a beautiful sunny day last week, the Turning Over a New Leaf project team decided to take a day off from the office to visit a spectacular chained library in the small town of Zutphen (located in the eastern part of the Netherlands). Built in 1564 as part of the church of St Walburga, it is one of only five chained libraries in the world that survive ‘intact’—that is, complete with the original books, chains, rods, and furniture." via http://www.metafilter.com/128209...
- Meg V. Meg
"What I find so interesting about the chained library is the rather fascinating dichotomy between the idea of ‘locking the books down’ in order to create a free, open, and shared space for an entire community to engage in reading. Despite the slight air of ‘mistrust’ (in a perfect book utopia, chains would not be needed), there is still a strong sense of community that underlines the...
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- Steele Lawman
Professional cover designs are one thing that traditional publishing has over self-publishing. Except when you can get a design that professional (that *is* a compliment) in a self-published book. Congratulations!
- Walt Crawford
Walt, I am touched by your compliment, after I have been a jerk to you too often. Thank you. That said, Laura supplied the photo of the couch, I chose a classic typeface and sampled colors from the photograph. So I'm happy with how it turned out, but it's more a matter of listening to what the author wanted.
- Steele Lawman
OMG You mean Steele Lawman is actually Steve Lawson! I take it all.... Nah. A good book cover, especially a good uncluttered one, is great and not always easy to do. This one's good in a number of subtle ways. I try to respect those who have talents I lack, and really good cover design is one of those.
- Walt Crawford
Good thing I can read. No one tells me anything! Here I was admiring the cover, never knowing the source of it! Wow.
- Mama Lawson
If you want Walt Crawford to unglue his book "The Big Deal and the Damage Done" you can wish for it at https://unglue.it/work/120545/ just don't expect him to change into an extrovert over night.
Well, I know half the people here already.
- Eric Hellman
So this would unglue the book, but not Walt himself?
- Steele Lawman
we can't unglue Walt because there's no ISBN for him and OCLC won't catalog him.
- Eric Hellman
At one point my library was seriously considering cataloging the liaisons so that we'd end up appearing when people searched for our topics of expertise. If we did that, could I be unglued?
- lris
no time to read all the instructions - do i have to pledge an amount or is wishlisting it enough?
- Christina Pikas
Joe, I love that video. And David Lee Roth is the hotness.
- Steele Lawman
There are some threads I'd just as soon stay out of.
- Walt Crawford
Okay, I have wished! My son is very good at ungluing things, but I suspect he's a little too young to have an account.
- laura x
Walt, if I were you, I would stay out of David Lee Roth's threads.
- Yo. Shark Dog.
I would note one thing: Buying the book may have more of an effect than wishing for it. At $9.95 (and you *own* the PDF--no DRM, free to lend it, free to resell it), it's not a massive commitment.
- Walt Crawford
Can't we declare Walt a National Treasure and get him archived and cataloged that way?
- Cameron Neylon
As the person who originally raised this issue,I am glad to see interest, and if Walt decide to go for it I'll put down more money to unglue it. But I think I'll just say that here.
- barbara fister
Cameron: No. I'm no treasure, national or local (I'm mostly a grumpy but curious old twice-fired has-been), and National Treasure doesn't carry funding.
- Walt Crawford
[The "but curious" is, of course, what leads to the public library non-closure study, the academic library "circ is falling everywhere" study, Give Us a Dollar...and The Big Deal and the Damage Done. Curiosity combined with reasonable writing and adequate numeracy is a terrible, terrible thing.]
- Walt Crawford
Looking at this again...Cameron, thanks very much for saying that. I'm feeling a little grumpy and not at all like a treasure. It happens.
- Walt Crawford
Q for the hive brain: I have a recollection of a journal that was OA, was purchased and taken closed. The content remained available via PMC but was not linked from the publisher site which now appeared as a subscription journal...anyone point me in that direction?
Not the subject you are looking for, but I am pretty sure that Folklorica used to be free since it was listed in a "Free Online Journals" database, and now it charges subscriptions, https://ojsprdap.vm.ku.edu/index... (Folklorica, Journal of the Slavic and East European Folkore Association. ISSN 1920-0242.)
- Yo. Shark Dog.
The one I was thinking of was presumably biomedical because the content is/was in PMC but keep the examples coming! The more the merrier. These examples are to point out why the publisher position that "PMC is duplication of effort" is not true.
- Cameron Neylon
BePress journals are not biomedical, but were sold and closed. (Although I guess they were sort of quasi-OA?)
- Jaclyn aka spamgirl
Years ago I published a piece in SIMILE - at the time out of U of Toronto Press and OA - and it migrated to a US university and suddenly was no longer open. And now, apparently, has ceased. Gee, why would that happen?
- barbara fister
Emailed Ebsco with a "my faculty is trying to do x with Dynamed question" Answer "
Please ask him to contact the librarian and get the email address from UIC." Umm...dude, I AM the librarian, care to try again?
If I've learned one thing from my dozens of EBSCO support interactions in the last year, it's that phone goes better than email.
- JffKrlsn
from Android
I've always had good luck sending problems to the sales rep rather than some help form. Those people over at EBSCO really hop to it when some shit comes to them from the sales rep.
- LibrarianOnTheLoose
I'm putting together a journal list for one of our TRIO programs, which has grant money to buy some paper subscriptions. They're especially interested in biology, engineering, and computer science--and I'm trying not to overlap with library subscriptions. Any suggestions for high-level, but not necessarily scholarly, publications in these areas?
Good, but we already get it in print. I don't mind overlapping if we only have e-access (they really want paper copies).
- Kirsten
Pondering recommending that the join a couple of academic/professional societies. They'd get access to more subscriptions that way, plus then the students could see the workings of those types of organizations and maybe get involved.
- Kirsten
Calling all data miners! Is there a relatively painless way to export citations from EBSCOhost into a CSV file? I have a faculty member who wants to easily compare citation results from different databases.
Have you signed on to the Cost of Knowledge? If so, how have you replied when subsequently asked to review/publish/edit an Els journal? Specific language wins extra points.
Yes, haven't been asked because the Big E knows better. ;)
- RepoRat
I haven't so I don't encounter this. But if I had, I'd probably say something like, "Thank you for the invitation to [do whatever] for [journal of whatever]. I must, however, decline. I am a signatory to the Cost of Knowledge declaration (http://thecostofknowledge.com/) and will do no work of any kind for an Elsevier publication in protest of that company's policies and actions, past...
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- Steele Lawman
Yes, and I have turned down a guest special issue article offer because of it, and am moving off Mendeley now for same reason (some done: taking a while because was heavy user)
- Heather Piwowar
from iPhone
I signed it, but I have not been asked to review/publish/edit an Els pub. I would probably simply decline and say that I have other projects going on.
- Yo. Shark Dog.
aw, g'wan, tell 'em why. the more we make clear to Elsevier quislings that the Big E's behavior means less-viable journals, the better.
- RepoRat
I have a general "no non-immediate OA reviewing policy". Text i generally use is..."Thankyour for your invitation to review X. I am afraid I no longer review for any journal or article which will not be made immediately Open Access with a CC BY license. [sometimes something on...I can't even tell what your journal policy is]. If your journal moves to an Open Access footing in the future I would be happy to look at reviewing papers for you at that time."
- Cameron Neylon
Yes, I like that. I may add Lawman's "Screw the man" at the end, just because it kind of seals the deal.
- Marie
Yeah, I thought the point to signing such a thing (or having such a personal policy) was to give yourself the courage/platform for a little lecture if they ever asked you to do something for an Evilsevier journal.
- Steele Lawman
fyi here's what I said recently when invited to submit a paper: "Thanks for the invitation. It sounds like a great special issue! That said, I've signed the Elsevier boycott. In the spirit of encouraging you to understand how seriously some scholars dislike Elsevier's current policies and wish you would move your journal to a truly Open publisher I'm not willing to write anything for your publication. Hopefully we'll have a chance to collaborate another way some day."
- Heather Piwowar
evidence it is so important you say WHY you are declining -- why you should take a moment to give the little lecture :) The person wrote back: "Thanks! I think this is great. We will make a special point about how two have refused to publish with Elsevier and how the quality of Elsevier journals suffers because of its policies and lobbying. That way your message will reach the audience (and editors). "
- Heather Piwowar
About a year ago I got an offer to publish in Elsevier's Library Connect. It was just before the Cost of Knowledge happened but I ended up declining anyway due to Big E's support of SOPA. That thread is here: http://friendfeed.com/lsw...
- John Dupuis
I just got email from a local web developer who reports that she was told LAST WEEK by Access Copyright that she needs a license to LINK to content on the web.
Is this true or true-ish in Canada? Can't be, right?
- Steele Lawman
it has never been true, but AC has been adding it to recent contracts in an attempt to convince people that it is, to justify their existence. The Supreme Court laughed at them
- DJF
from Android
the original conversation between the developer and Access Copyright was on the phone, unfortunately
- DJF
from Android
Rats - she should call back and ask to have this in writing - and if they don't.. well it's a dammed if they do, dammed if they don't situation, isn't it?
- copystar
The OCLC Affiliate Services Terms and Conditions say that I may only use the affiliate services for Purposes: "G. 'Purposes' means managing and enabling access to: (i) library services, library materials, library resources and information related thereto; and/or (ii) services, materials, resources or information of interest to library patrons."
I can, barely, stretch this definition to include the work that I'm doing on my research project, since one of the outcomes is, in theory, data that will help us improve our collections. But the grad student who wants to use WorldCat data for a bibliographic study of the spread of publishing in New Spain is pretty much out of luck.
- DJF
OCLC needs to update the terms to allow for bibliometric research and digital scholarship.
- DJF
"access to ... information of interest to library patrons" sounds like your grad student, doesn't it?
- Jenica
true. Again a stretch, since OCLC is assuming that we're interested in accessing the books, not the bibliographic data. We're also not allowed to use automated process to "'mine' or harvest material amounts of Data". One can only wonder what qualifies as "material amounts of data", but I don't thinking that 10,000 records would count as material.
- DJF
this is the kind of stuff that has "radicalized" me over the past year. OCLC is taking data that so called member libraries gave it for free (hell, we paid to give it to them), and is selling access to it back to us, with restrictions on what we're allowed to do.
- DJF
and people wonder why i want to stop cataloging.
- kendrak
RR, which part? that it's radicalized me, or the framing that they're selling access back to us? This is just one of the smaller bits, and I will be soon be pointing out in an article that these terms are limiting the ability to do bibliometric research and limiting researchers in the emerging field of DH.
- DJF
i recently had a librarian ask me something similar, and I found what I think might be the right answer on the WorldCat record use FAQ. Check out Question #6: http://www.oclc.org/en-US...
- Christa
Christa, thanks for that. If course, I'm not transferring any records to him; I'm facilitating his getting a developer key so he can download them himself, which, again, oclc is ignoring as a possibility, and also, we're back to the question of, "what is a large amount of data?" I know that this is is perfectly acceptable. The problem is that oclc's incredibly detailed terms are so...
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- DJF
from Android
DJF: your entire comment just prior to my question. :) I'm giving a talk in the Lands of the Enemy the end of this month.
- RepoRat
sure. go wild. I said it publicly right here, and I'm not the first to point out that oclc is selling us our own labor and trying to claim copyright over factual data.
- DJF
from Android
ah, OK David, I see. your original info sounded familiar to me, but it's not the same situation at all. and yes, i agree with your assessment of OCLC regarding who owns what.
- Christa
I just heard back from OCLC. They agree that "yes, the standard terms would likely make the student’s work impractical", and point me to a completely separate process for managing "academic research projects"
- DJF
This group solicited papers from a in-house listserv I'm on to answer questions about citation management software (Endnote, etc). Perhaps not the most targeted recruitment.
- Hedgehog
from Bookmarklet
I only checked a couple of the many, many journals...but those I checked showed no indication of any published issues. This does not bode well. (I just checked a dozen. Most had "ISSN pending." Not one of those I checked showed a publication history.)
- Walt Crawford
And...the address is a boutique hotel. Better and better.
- Walt Crawford
Lesson learned today: one must be hardcore in calling out law students who refuse to respond during workshops. Sheesh, even the awkward silence technique didn't even work.
I've found myself on a couple of committees looking at electronic resources stuff (and I'm a bit lost). Question: what usage stats products are all y'all using? I've heard of Ustat, JUSP, and EBSCO's Usage Consolidation. Are there others?
We're not using any product--we download everything ourselves, and plug the data in to spreadsheets that we've developed over time. ETA: Not that I wouldn't like to not do them manually; it's a money issue.
- Kirsten
Scholarly Stats is another paid product, and I think the open-source ERMS CORAL has a use statistics component, as well. It depends on how much you want to do yourself, using whichever system to aggregate them, and how much you want someone else to do for you.
- Royce's favorite Anna
most e-resources librarians i know don't use a product at all, but instead gather COUNTER statistics and compile manually.
- Marie
The PubGet people had something, but I don't know anything about it. We have Serials Solutions, and compile manually for everything else.
- Rebecca Hedreen
^^^ PubGet has Paper Stats. Haven't used it.
- Marie
no joke. and the "lookit me with awkwardly-smiling Important People!" shots.
- RepoRat
Mssr. P. I live here in MD. And we do NOT put Old Bay on everything. Please let that be some form of folksy hyperbole. And Tony Blair's Comment "The art of leadership is saying no, not yes. It is very easy to say yes." can go jump off a bridge. Easy to say yes indeed.
- ♫410 I Coach 'em Up♫
Got an email asking me to help promote the thing, whatever a course-ference is. Speaker list has some of the issues these sorts of things tend to have.
- John Dupuis
It's also unclear to me who exactly is organizing this. Is it the consultant dude? The person who emailed me?
- John Dupuis
NITLE seems to be at the bottom of the pile somewhere.
- RepoRat
Only $25, I might give it a shot. Also, Michael Nielsen is speaking in the technology slot!
- Yo. Shark Dog.
Ah, that. Yes, just some individuals at Carthage College, or perhaps as part of Wisconsin Library doings. One of the organizers is Lizz Zitron, who I had the pleasure of working with when she was in Library school. She is very good people. I think it's a legit professional development thing, done for the good of the whole.
- RudĩϐЯaЯïan
It looks interesting, but also looks vaguely pyramid-y. I'm intrigued.
- kendrak
And I have to say that, while there are some white dudes, it's a fairly diverse set of speakers. (There's only one speaker who I might pay $25 *not* to listen to, and these days that's a pretty good track record.)
- Walt Crawford
uh, I count about 70% white dudes. that is not representative of librarianship, and I doubt it's representative of education or publishing either. Tech, yeah, sure, it's diverse as tech goes.
- RepoRat
I wouldn't sign up for this because they are calling it a Course-Ference which fuck that shit. But aside from that and the other issues mentioned above, this looks not horrible?
- Steele Lawman
Info I just got from Lizz: Carthage College in Kenosha, WI is hosting a virtual conference on Forecasting Next Generation Libraries (http://www.nextgenlibraries.org) from July 1-August 19. This conference aims to help (mostly academic, but all are welcome!) librarians examine the past and their present in order to help forecast their future. Additionally, we'll hear from publishers,...
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- RudĩϐЯaЯïan
I agree with the not horribleness. It's probably well worth the $25. The panel format would have been easy to adapt to adding the occasional early- or mid-career rather than focusing on director of this or director of that.
- John Dupuis
I like Josh Morrill a lot. He works very closely with my partner on research questions involving use of digital resources by students. He's super smart and very data and evidence oriented, and also is very useful in terms of thinking about evaluation and assessment. There is a personal bias there, but we've had him come here to do some teaching about methods, and my sense from people is that he was well received.
- Sarah
Our feedback board re: our 24/5 finals week hours is asking for suggestions. There are a handful of requests for kittens, and one for "rock salt and wrought iron for the demons", and then one for "cups for the free water dispenser." So we put out cups. The next day "Bigger cups, please."
I use these boards to keep me grounded. On the one hand, knowing what students really think REALLY MATTERS as i make decisions. And staying in their goofy-ass loop is awesome. But on the other hand, I have to remember we'll absolutely 100% never ever ever ever please them all fully. Ever.
- Jenica
Yes, put out a basket labeled "as requested" with rock salt, wrought iron, and pictures of kittens.
- lris
I asked the undergrad library here if they kept all the suggestion cards and responses on their (lively, EPIC WIN) suggestion board. Turns out they do. I told them they HAD to do a chapbook of these; it'd be a WIZARD fundraising tool. Sigh. They didn't listen.
- RepoRat
...days like this are why I love working in libraries. Best after lunch cheer ever.
- MontglaneChess
Totally need to put salt around some windows and doors and post pictures.
- Rachel Walden
Oh, and if you do the salt/iron, you should also put out a small box with a hinged lid and label it a "crossroads box."
- Rachel Walden
Isn't it supposed to be "cold iron"? I'm not up on my demonology... I guess that's an oversight that could really come back to bite me, huh?
- Bill Hooker
Wow, when you post something to ALA ThinkTank on Facebook, pretty much everybody only reads the blurb that shows up and not the entire article. Lesson learned there.
I think he's dead on about the problem. (See also http://crl.acrl.org/content... coincidentally.) I don't know that he has THE SOLUTION, but then I don't know that anybody does -- I sure don't. I just know that "liking" libraries and librarians is not enough. We need our patron base to USE, UNDERSTAND, and FIGHT FOR libraries and librarians.
- RepoRat
Which may be where the new ALA division that unites Friends, trustees, library foundations and others comes in: Friends, especially, can be enormously effective advocates for public libraries.
- Walt Crawford
I liked this piece. I think his take on it is not bulletproof, but it's certainly a better way of advocating for the library instead of lines like "it helps poor people". If we can't sway votes or put money into the pot, we can help frame the issue better.
- Andy
Super huge deal, IMO. This is my own half-assed business analysis, but I wonder if Gale, Readex, other companies that create extremely large and extremely expensive primary source databases are having trouble as they reach market saturation. There are only so many people that can afford NCCO, ECCO, things like that, so once those all those customers purchase, where do you go? Something something late hyper-capitalism predicated on unending expansion something.
- Amandadon't
We have an "OCLC symbol" and a holdings location code thing. These are completely different, even though they're issued by the same organization, and arguably for roughly the same purpose. Librarians are always so well organized.