Announcement about non-LIS journals is a bit outside the usual scope of OA Librarian, but I thought this one might be of interest. Medknow Publications is a fully open access publisher, based in India. The business model is interesting - no article submission or processing fee, as with all of Medknow's journals.
Published since 1955, Indian Journal of Dermatology is one of the oldest journals dedicated to this particular discipline. Since its inception, the Journal publishes information relating to skin, its ailments and the different modes of therapeutics. It also carries articles on Leprosy, STI and HIV/AIDS. This was the first Indian Dermatology Journal to be indexed in Index Medicus and the first to enter the Internet. The web version www.e-ijd.org was launched in November 2000 with abstracts of the published articles.
On 26th November 2005, during its Golden Jubilee celebrations (http://www.e-ijd.org/goldcon_2005.asp), a new website of the journal was launched with free access to the full text articles. The OA version of the journal has been brought by Medknow Publications (www.medknow.com). The journal will provide immediate free access to its content. Similar to all the journals published by Medknow, there will be no article submission or processing fee.
Monday, December 12, 2005
Saturday, December 10, 2005
A Research Agenda about Googling
Many in the library world have raised questions about Google (Sam Trosow, for example, on the digitization project). What else are folks doing? Phillipe Dumas suggests developing a research program about the phenomenon in a recent deposit into @rchiveSIC a French cross-institutional disciplinary open access archive for LIS. GOOGLE AU QUOTIDIEN : LE GOOGLING EN PERSPECTIVE is written in French but has an English summary: "The author first notes that Google, the trade mark, the project, the utilization - the "googling"- are social facts proven by the numbers - number of net surfers, of requests, of uses- and by the signs of adhesion - linguistics, economic, social. A socio linguistic analysis of the speeches of the persons in charge of Google and of users indicate that the social fact "googling" results in the emergence of a culture and a world community which shares it. They are supported by the language and also by the myths that were created and largely maintained by the owners the mark "Google Inc". The conclusion is that the current organization of the market of services on the Internet makes that Google Inc. is almost the only institution to know the population of the googlers. In order not to be subjected to this monopoly, however comfortable it is, the author proposes to develop a research program on the uses and users of Google."
I'm curious about what exactly a research program about Googling will look like. Will it include partial and non-users? As I've noted before non users are very interesting. What Dumas documents as marking and shaping of a culture about googling also reminds me of OCLC's search for a "library" brand in their latest Perspectives research report. About 3000 information consumers were questioned, presumably the general public, from various regions around the world, about information seeking habits and preferences. Some findings: 84% of all electronic information seeking begins with search engines; and the percentage who Completely agree that Google provides worthwhile information breaks down thus: 55% for all regions, 59% for Australia, Singapore and India, 56% for Canada, 51% for UK, and 54% for US (source: Appendix A - Supporting Data Tables, OCLC Perceptions of Libraries and Information Resources, http://www.oclc.org/reports/2005perceptions.htm).
I'm curious about what exactly a research program about Googling will look like. Will it include partial and non-users? As I've noted before non users are very interesting. What Dumas documents as marking and shaping of a culture about googling also reminds me of OCLC's search for a "library" brand in their latest Perspectives research report. About 3000 information consumers were questioned, presumably the general public, from various regions around the world, about information seeking habits and preferences. Some findings: 84% of all electronic information seeking begins with search engines; and the percentage who Completely agree that Google provides worthwhile information breaks down thus: 55% for all regions, 59% for Australia, Singapore and India, 56% for Canada, 51% for UK, and 54% for US (source: Appendix A - Supporting Data Tables, OCLC Perceptions of Libraries and Information Resources, http://www.oclc.org/reports/2005perceptions.htm).
Jan Szczepanski: collecting for the world
The Directory of Open Access Journals has a page for Special Thanks to the volunteer contributors of journal titles. One special contributor is Swedish OA Librarian Jan Szczepanski, who has the world's longest list of OA journal titles in the world that I'm aware of - as of the beginning of December 2005, 3,948 titles and 757 retrodigitized titles, for a total of 4,705.
Jan, in turn, recognizes the help of his many friends from around the world. Collecting and organizing all the bibliographic information to connect everyone with all the free e-journals is a major undertaking; something that no individual or single library could do individually - but we can do it, if we work together. More help is needed!
John Kjellberg has created a web page for links to Jan's lists of OA journals in Word, Excel, or Open Document Format.
Jan was kind enough to write me an e-mail about his work; even though this was not meant to be organized for formal publication, I liked it so much that it is posted below pretty much as it was written (with Jan's permission). Some highlights: after decades of experience in acquisitions in humanities and social sciences, Jan began collecting free e-journal titles in the late 1990's, inspired first by an important journal he could not purchase, then through a study which uncovered just how many free e-journals there are. From the beginning, Jan has been supplying his list of titles to DOAJ. In May 2005, Jan decided to go public with his own list, for several reasons: DOAJ is a bit slow at adding titles (no doubt due to the vetting process); the main focus of the open access movement is STM, so that many important OA developments in humanities and social sciences do not get as much attention; and, in the UK, misinformation about the extent of open access has been presented to the government, in relation to the RCUK position on open access.
In Jan's words:
Background 1998-2004
Do you remember the ads for Postmodern Culture in the early 90's? The journal was not available on paper! I wanted to buy this important journal but couldn't. I never forgot that.
In 1998 I made a study for the library on how many free e-journals existed and what was the worth. In the beginning of 1999 we presented a report. By we I mean some memberts of my staff at the Department of Humanities, where I was Head at the time: Gun Fridell, Gunnar Holmlund, Lise-Lotte Larsdotter and Martin Oxelqvist.
We made a study in two areas, music and philosophy. We found that the amount of free e-journals was impressive and of high quality, well worth collecting.
Since then I continued collecting free e-journals in the humanities. In January 2002 the library had created a local database for electronic journals and I started to put also the free e-journals there. At the end of 2002 I had included over 300. In December that year I checked the statistics. They had been used 7.500 times, that is 25 times in avarage. This was impressive so I continued collecting.
During 2003 I included 800 more living titles and 400 retrodigitalized titles. Now the statistics showed that free e-journals had been used 28.000 times in total, 18 times per title in average.
During 2004 I found 864 new titles to add and now I had totally 2.420. I got the impression that there were more titles than ever and it was very easy to find new nice titles. Now I included even journals in social sciences, geology and mathematics. The statistics figure had now risen to 50,051 and the average figure to 2,068. I was pleased with myself.
Mathematics was added just for fun. I wanted to get the feeling for the other side of scholarship. (I have read Snows book on the two cultures).
Everything exploded during 2005. In 2004, I had collected 2.400 titles I have now in the beginning of December 2005, 3.948 titles and 757 retrodigitized titles, totally 4.705.
The open access movement is not only STM-journals fighting commercial publishers it is also a very quiet but strong movement within the other culture, humanity and social sciences. They are not competing with commercial publishers because these journals have never been extremly expensive. They start new journals because the technology is there and they are used to writing and working for free and want to communicate and give the world the results of their work.
Peter Suber
In May 2005 I contacted Peter Suber because I wanted to help my journals to be better known and used and disseminated. Peter helped me. I had found out that it wasn't enough just to start up a free e-journal if nobody knows about it. So I thought, I will try to see to it that thousands of libraries all over the world will include them amongst their electronic Elsevier-titles.
Elsevier-Szczepanski
What is the difference between the commercial packages and my titles? One of the most important differences is that I have titles from all over the world and in many more languages. Small countries are represented, other continents. I have broken the anglo-american dominance! This feels good and right. And I have made humanities and social science free e-journals more visible. That gives also a good feeling. I have not earned a penny and for that I will get a reward in heaven.
I have a background in acquisitions. During twenty years I was personally responsible for that in the humanities and also for the social sciences during ten years. This means that nearly everyghing of foreign books and journals was collected by me. Now I can say that I collect for the whole world.
Jan Szczepanski's list of OA-journals
A collegue in University of Skövde, John Kjellberg, offered to make a
homepage after that people had problems with Peter Subers linking.
http://www.his.se/templates/vanligwebbsida1.aspx?id=20709
Why did I turn public? One of the reasons was that I thought DOAJ was working too slow. A bottle-neck! New titles were popping up daily and it's our duty as librarians to collect them and give them to our customers. The second reason was the UK government assertion that the open access movement had lost in momentum. There were wrong.
After three months I asked John Kjellberg if he could send me some statistics. 463 request had been made from the English page. 18 from US, 16 from Sweden,13 from Finland, 10 from Germany, 8 from Japan, Argentinga, Austria, Australia, 6 from France, Canada, Italy, Romania.
The Swedish page had 764 successful requests, 56 from Uppsala, 37 from my own library, 24 from the Royal Library and so on.
With the help of my friends
During the years I have got a lot of friends all over the world, USA, UK, France, Germany and Mexico. These friends are interested in collecting free e-journals. [Heather: Some of Jan's friends just might appear in future OA Librarian postings].
Things that make life worth living
Jenda: A Journal of Culture and African Women Studies http://www.jendajournal.com, creates "a global forum for African women scholars, analysts and activists to participate on an equal footing with their contemporaries worldwide in debates, exchanges of ideas, and the creation and documentation of knowledge." Though the journals were designed to take advantage of the bibliographical resources on the site. The integrated layout employ search functionality. At the left-hand side of the table of content page of each journal are links to the section containing a fairly deep Africa-focused bibliography, organized by topic.
Heather again: speaking of things that make life worth living, having friends like Jan Szczepanski is definitely on my list! Best wishes to Jan, his librarian-wife, and Göteborgs universitetsbibliotek
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
Jan, in turn, recognizes the help of his many friends from around the world. Collecting and organizing all the bibliographic information to connect everyone with all the free e-journals is a major undertaking; something that no individual or single library could do individually - but we can do it, if we work together. More help is needed!
John Kjellberg has created a web page for links to Jan's lists of OA journals in Word, Excel, or Open Document Format.
Jan was kind enough to write me an e-mail about his work; even though this was not meant to be organized for formal publication, I liked it so much that it is posted below pretty much as it was written (with Jan's permission). Some highlights: after decades of experience in acquisitions in humanities and social sciences, Jan began collecting free e-journal titles in the late 1990's, inspired first by an important journal he could not purchase, then through a study which uncovered just how many free e-journals there are. From the beginning, Jan has been supplying his list of titles to DOAJ. In May 2005, Jan decided to go public with his own list, for several reasons: DOAJ is a bit slow at adding titles (no doubt due to the vetting process); the main focus of the open access movement is STM, so that many important OA developments in humanities and social sciences do not get as much attention; and, in the UK, misinformation about the extent of open access has been presented to the government, in relation to the RCUK position on open access.
In Jan's words:
Background 1998-2004
Do you remember the ads for Postmodern Culture in the early 90's? The journal was not available on paper! I wanted to buy this important journal but couldn't. I never forgot that.
In 1998 I made a study for the library on how many free e-journals existed and what was the worth. In the beginning of 1999 we presented a report. By we I mean some memberts of my staff at the Department of Humanities, where I was Head at the time: Gun Fridell, Gunnar Holmlund, Lise-Lotte Larsdotter and Martin Oxelqvist.
We made a study in two areas, music and philosophy. We found that the amount of free e-journals was impressive and of high quality, well worth collecting.
Since then I continued collecting free e-journals in the humanities. In January 2002 the library had created a local database for electronic journals and I started to put also the free e-journals there. At the end of 2002 I had included over 300. In December that year I checked the statistics. They had been used 7.500 times, that is 25 times in avarage. This was impressive so I continued collecting.
During 2003 I included 800 more living titles and 400 retrodigitalized titles. Now the statistics showed that free e-journals had been used 28.000 times in total, 18 times per title in average.
During 2004 I found 864 new titles to add and now I had totally 2.420. I got the impression that there were more titles than ever and it was very easy to find new nice titles. Now I included even journals in social sciences, geology and mathematics. The statistics figure had now risen to 50,051 and the average figure to 2,068. I was pleased with myself.
Mathematics was added just for fun. I wanted to get the feeling for the other side of scholarship. (I have read Snows book on the two cultures).
Everything exploded during 2005. In 2004, I had collected 2.400 titles I have now in the beginning of December 2005, 3.948 titles and 757 retrodigitized titles, totally 4.705.
The open access movement is not only STM-journals fighting commercial publishers it is also a very quiet but strong movement within the other culture, humanity and social sciences. They are not competing with commercial publishers because these journals have never been extremly expensive. They start new journals because the technology is there and they are used to writing and working for free and want to communicate and give the world the results of their work.
Peter Suber
In May 2005 I contacted Peter Suber because I wanted to help my journals to be better known and used and disseminated. Peter helped me. I had found out that it wasn't enough just to start up a free e-journal if nobody knows about it. So I thought, I will try to see to it that thousands of libraries all over the world will include them amongst their electronic Elsevier-titles.
Elsevier-Szczepanski
What is the difference between the commercial packages and my titles? One of the most important differences is that I have titles from all over the world and in many more languages. Small countries are represented, other continents. I have broken the anglo-american dominance! This feels good and right. And I have made humanities and social science free e-journals more visible. That gives also a good feeling. I have not earned a penny and for that I will get a reward in heaven.
I have a background in acquisitions. During twenty years I was personally responsible for that in the humanities and also for the social sciences during ten years. This means that nearly everyghing of foreign books and journals was collected by me. Now I can say that I collect for the whole world.
Jan Szczepanski's list of OA-journals
A collegue in University of Skövde, John Kjellberg, offered to make a
homepage after that people had problems with Peter Subers linking.
http://www.his.se/templates/vanligwebbsida1.aspx?id=20709
Why did I turn public? One of the reasons was that I thought DOAJ was working too slow. A bottle-neck! New titles were popping up daily and it's our duty as librarians to collect them and give them to our customers. The second reason was the UK government assertion that the open access movement had lost in momentum. There were wrong.
After three months I asked John Kjellberg if he could send me some statistics. 463 request had been made from the English page. 18 from US, 16 from Sweden,13 from Finland, 10 from Germany, 8 from Japan, Argentinga, Austria, Australia, 6 from France, Canada, Italy, Romania.
The Swedish page had 764 successful requests, 56 from Uppsala, 37 from my own library, 24 from the Royal Library and so on.
With the help of my friends
During the years I have got a lot of friends all over the world, USA, UK, France, Germany and Mexico. These friends are interested in collecting free e-journals. [Heather: Some of Jan's friends just might appear in future OA Librarian postings].
Things that make life worth living
Jenda: A Journal of Culture and African Women Studies http://www.jendajournal.com, creates "a global forum for African women scholars, analysts and activists to participate on an equal footing with their contemporaries worldwide in debates, exchanges of ideas, and the creation and documentation of knowledge." Though the journals were designed to take advantage of the bibliographical resources on the site. The integrated layout employ search functionality. At the left-hand side of the table of content page of each journal are links to the section containing a fairly deep Africa-focused bibliography, organized by topic.
Heather again: speaking of things that make life worth living, having friends like Jan Szczepanski is definitely on my list! Best wishes to Jan, his librarian-wife, and Göteborgs universitetsbibliotek
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
Thursday, December 08, 2005
Libre accès à l'information scientifique & technique...
Depuis avril 2003, l'Institut de l'Information Scientifique et Technique du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (INIST-CNRS) en France publie un blog sur le Libre accès à l'information scientifique & technique... conçu par des chercheurs pour les chercheurs. Le site fournit de l'information sur les archives ouvertes, les modèles de publication électronique, des études et analyses d'impact ainsi que des entrevues avec divers chercheurs, administrateurs et directeurs de départements dans le milieu de la recherche quant à leurs opinions au sujet du phénomène du libre accès à l'information. Contient également un glossaire qui définit les termes français utilisés dans le cadre du Libre Accès avec leur équivalent anglais.
**************************
Since April 2003, the Institut de l'Information Scientifique et Technique du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (INIST-CNRS) in France, has maintained its own weblog Libre accès à l'information scientifique & technique... about open access issues by researchers for researchers. The blog deals with open archives, electronic publishing models, studies on the impact of OA and also dedicates a section to interviews with researchers, research facilities administrators and department directors about their views and opinions regarding OA. There is also a useful glossary of OA terms and definitions in french with their english equivalents.
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
Latest Scholarly Electronic Publishing Weblog
The Dec. 5 edition of Charles Bailey's Scholarly Electronic Publishing Weblog is available.
Rick Luce honoured for Open Access work
From Research Library News:
Rick Luce, Director of the LANL Research Library, has been honored by the Board of Directors of the Ibero-America Science and Technology Education Consortium (ISTEC) for his "support for the development of digital libraries in Latin America, and for your vision that resulted in the adoption of the Brazilian Declaration on Open Access in 2004."
Thanks to Peter Suber on Open Access News.
This post reflects my personal opinion only and does not represent the opinions or policy of the BC Electronic Library Network or the Simon Fraser University Library.
Rick Luce, Director of the LANL Research Library, has been honored by the Board of Directors of the Ibero-America Science and Technology Education Consortium (ISTEC) for his "support for the development of digital libraries in Latin America, and for your vision that resulted in the adoption of the Brazilian Declaration on Open Access in 2004."
Thanks to Peter Suber on Open Access News.
This post reflects my personal opinion only and does not represent the opinions or policy of the BC Electronic Library Network or the Simon Fraser University Library.
Open Access in Poland
New in E-LIS: Librarian Bozena Badnarek-Michalska discusses the state of open access in Poland: basically, like many other countries, struggling between a new opened attitude and a lack of education and financial commitment (at least, so far). One of the most successful projects to date is the Wielkopolska Digital Library, based on a work of a group of determined librarians (from both scientific and public libraries), information technologists and scientists from Poznan.
Bednarek-Michalska, Bozena (2005) Free Access to Information and Knowledge or Educational Exclusion? World’s Trends versus Poland. Bulletin EBIB 63(2).
Thanks to Imma Subbirats.
Bednarek-Michalska, Bozena (2005) Free Access to Information and Knowledge or Educational Exclusion? World’s Trends versus Poland. Bulletin EBIB 63(2).
Thanks to Imma Subbirats.
Citation Impact Bibliography Resource
If you're looking for evidence that open access increases citation impact, this bibliography of studies, courtesy of OpCit, the Open Citation Project - Reference Linking and Citation Analysis, is a great place to start. (The link is also provided in the Bibliographies section of the Resources bar to your right on this blog).
Thanks to Stevan Harnad for making me aware of this incredible resource.
Thanks to Stevan Harnad for making me aware of this incredible resource.
Open Letter from Fellows of the Royal Society
Forty-two Fellows of the Royal Society, including 5 Nobel Laureates, have signed an Open Letter expressing disappointment with the Royal Society's position, and supporting the RCUK move toward open access. The letter mentions strong backing of the RCUK proposal by librarians!
Excerpt:
As working scientists who support open access to published research, we believe that the Society should support RCUK's proposal, rather than oppose it. The proposed RCUK policy will ensure that the results of research funded by the Research Councils are made freely and rapidly available, maximizing their utility not only to the scholarly community in the United Kingdom and around the world, but also to practitioners (including doctors and nurses) and to the British public whose taxes largely support the research. The RCUK policy has strong backing from librarians and academics, and has received official support3 from Universities UK, the organization that represents UK university vice-chancellors and principals.
Thanks to Stevan Harnad, Peter Suber, and others.
Excerpt:
As working scientists who support open access to published research, we believe that the Society should support RCUK's proposal, rather than oppose it. The proposed RCUK policy will ensure that the results of research funded by the Research Councils are made freely and rapidly available, maximizing their utility not only to the scholarly community in the United Kingdom and around the world, but also to practitioners (including doctors and nurses) and to the British public whose taxes largely support the research. The RCUK policy has strong backing from librarians and academics, and has received official support3 from Universities UK, the organization that represents UK university vice-chancellors and principals.
Thanks to Stevan Harnad, Peter Suber, and others.
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
Open Access Provides a Forum That Can Save Lives
The following is from Peter Suber's Open Access News site. It is an excellent example of how the open access approach to publishing new medical research findings can help save lives:
Denys N. Wheatley, Cell biology as the basis of a better understanding of cancer, Cancer Cell International, November 30, 2005.
Denys N. Wheatley, Cell biology as the basis of a better understanding of cancer, Cancer Cell International, November 30, 2005.
Abstract: Clinicians will argue that cancer can only really receive the treatment that is needed through thorough understanding of medicine. However, even empirical approaches to therapy result in experimental analysis of the agencies involved on test cells, usually in culture. From the obverse perspective, cell biologists will argue that until we fully understand cell cycle regulation, tumour management will be too imprecise to make the best advances. A forum is needed whereby the fundamental studies on cells prior to, during and after transformation in vitro can be freely reported (open access) and discussed. The action of anticancer agents and cancer preventative substances can more easily be studied in vitro before the often excessive complexity of making similar studies in experimental and human cancers is tackled. Cancer Cell International is committed to providing such a forum. Ironically within a few months of launching this open access journal, Elsevier had much the same idea, and there one has to pay for the privilege of downloading vital papers in this biomedical field.
Monday, December 05, 2005
Views on the DASER-2 Summit, Dec. 2-4, 2005
Building on the success of the first DASER Summit, DASER-2 examined new issues and challenges related to digital archives and Science-Technology-Medicine (STM) publishing. The conference explored issues surrounding digital libraries, institutional repositories and open access publishing. such as:
- Impact of OA on the future of STM libraries;
- Institutional repository models: what works and what doesn't;
- Publisher-library collaboration strategies, now and in the near future;
- Institutional repository object issues--theses, datasets, learning objects, etc.;
- User needs and patterns related to digital libraries.
E-LIS Passes 3,000 Submissions
Over the weekend of November 26, 2005, the number of submissions to E-LIS, an open access archive for LIS documents, went over the 3,000 mark. As of writing (December 5, 2005), the total is 3017.
Sunday, December 04, 2005
Library-related posts on OA News
From Open Access News:
New Book on Library Tech Covers Some OA Topics. On: Nancy Courtney (ed.), Technology for the Rest of Us : A Primer on Computer Technologies for the Low-Tech Librarian, Libraries Unlimited, 2005. From: LIS News
How Librarians Can Help On: Sarah Thomas, Advancing Scholarship Through Library Collaboration, in Eerland Kolding Nielson et al. (eds.), Advancing Scholarship Through Library Collaboration, in Die Innovative Bibliothek: Elmar Mittler zum 65. Geburtstag, Muenchen: K.G. Sur, 2005, pp. 67-75.
New Book on Library Tech Covers Some OA Topics. On: Nancy Courtney (ed.), Technology for the Rest of Us : A Primer on Computer Technologies for the Low-Tech Librarian, Libraries Unlimited, 2005. From: LIS News
How Librarians Can Help On: Sarah Thomas, Advancing Scholarship Through Library Collaboration, in Eerland Kolding Nielson et al. (eds.), Advancing Scholarship Through Library Collaboration, in Die Innovative Bibliothek: Elmar Mittler zum 65. Geburtstag, Muenchen: K.G. Sur, 2005, pp. 67-75.
Saturday, December 03, 2005
:: Culture Libre.ca ::
Olivier Charbonneau's blog (en français) :: Culture Libre.ca ::, occasionally deals with open access, and often with related issues such as digital copyright and the very new Information Commons Interest Group of the Canadian Library Association.
SPARC Open Access Newsletter: December Issue
The Dec. 2005 issue of the SPARC Open Access Newsletter is available. This issue takes a close look at the recent Working Group recommendation to strengthen the NIH public-access policy and the OA news coming out of the Tunis phase of WSIS. It also asks how the expanding web is like the expanding universe and how search engines and open access are like the gravity that may, or may not, hold it all together. The Top Stories section takes a brief look at milestones at several OA resources, a worldwide wave of new repository launches, new search developments that affect OA, the Royal Society position statement, and the rapidly
multiplying book-scanning projects. Thanks to Peter Suber.
multiplying book-scanning projects. Thanks to Peter Suber.
Four LIS Journals Added to DOAJ!
Four LIS journals have been added to DOAJ in the last 30 days - all published by library associations!
The Journal of the American Library Association's Map and Geography Round Table, Coordinates, Series A and Series B are new journals; articles are searchable at the article level in DOAJ.
medizin-bibliothek-information, has been published by the Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Medizinisches Bibliothekswesen since 2001 (in german).
Virginia Libraries has been published by the Virginia Library Association for many years. Full access to all the articles begins with Vol. 42: 1, 1996.
The Journal of the American Library Association's Map and Geography Round Table, Coordinates, Series A and Series B are new journals; articles are searchable at the article level in DOAJ.
medizin-bibliothek-information, has been published by the Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Medizinisches Bibliothekswesen since 2001 (in german).
Virginia Libraries has been published by the Virginia Library Association for many years. Full access to all the articles begins with Vol. 42: 1, 1996.
Friday, December 02, 2005
Selective Exposure
A theme we hope to pursue in this blog is to report briefly on current research/work in progress that is being uploaded into our open access archives. Especially those that are highly pertinent to libraries, librarians, and other information professionals. Here's our first research snippet.
Selective exposure, the tendency to avoid information that is inconsistent with one's beliefs and attitudes will be familiar to librarians and other information providers/researchers as an intervening variable in information seeking behaviors. Kelly Garrett, phd from the University of Michigan School of Information and now a research fellow at CRITO, University of California at Irvine, shares his research into selective exposure (does it exist?)in a talk titled Echo Chambers or Windows on the World? Partisan Selective Exposure and the Online News Environment. Findings from two projects about citizens' preferences with regard to political information show that "individuals' preference for support and their aversion to challenge are different. People (1) seek out sources that support their viewpoints; (2) are interested in news items with which they agree; and (3) use online sources to increase their repertoire of opinion-supporting arguments. They do not, however, systematically exclude exposure to other viewpoints. Ultimately, this research suggests that individuals value awareness of other perspectives, while simultaneously wanting to limit their contact with them." A streaming video is also available.
Selective exposure, the tendency to avoid information that is inconsistent with one's beliefs and attitudes will be familiar to librarians and other information providers/researchers as an intervening variable in information seeking behaviors. Kelly Garrett, phd from the University of Michigan School of Information and now a research fellow at CRITO, University of California at Irvine, shares his research into selective exposure (does it exist?)in a talk titled Echo Chambers or Windows on the World? Partisan Selective Exposure and the Online News Environment. Findings from two projects about citizens' preferences with regard to political information show that "individuals' preference for support and their aversion to challenge are different. People (1) seek out sources that support their viewpoints; (2) are interested in news items with which they agree; and (3) use online sources to increase their repertoire of opinion-supporting arguments. They do not, however, systematically exclude exposure to other viewpoints. Ultimately, this research suggests that individuals value awareness of other perspectives, while simultaneously wanting to limit their contact with them." A streaming video is also available.
Thursday, December 01, 2005
SPARC launches Open Access Programs website
Here's a very interesting (and particularly relevant for academic librarians) posting that appeared on Peter Suber's Open Access News blog today:
SPARC has launched Open Access Programs, "[a] resource for librarians and administrators creating events to promote open access among faculty members." From the site:
[T]his Web site will include details of conferences, seminars, brown-bag lunches, faculty meeting presentations, mailings, and every other form of outreach that you or your colleagues have found successful - or not. Your willingness to share what you have learned in creating educational programs will be a great help to other universities as they traverse the planning process. In addition to giving you the chance to review what others are up to, this site will ask you some basic questions about your Institutional Repository (IR) and any open access programs you have put in place. We invite you to contribute as much additional information as you like. The richer the detail, the easier it will be for others to build on your successes....[Y]ou may come back to edit it at any time.
(Peter adds: A great idea, long needed. Visit the site for helpful ideas and help others by adding your own ideas and experience.)
SPARC has launched Open Access Programs, "[a] resource for librarians and administrators creating events to promote open access among faculty members." From the site:
[T]his Web site will include details of conferences, seminars, brown-bag lunches, faculty meeting presentations, mailings, and every other form of outreach that you or your colleagues have found successful - or not. Your willingness to share what you have learned in creating educational programs will be a great help to other universities as they traverse the planning process. In addition to giving you the chance to review what others are up to, this site will ask you some basic questions about your Institutional Repository (IR) and any open access programs you have put in place. We invite you to contribute as much additional information as you like. The richer the detail, the easier it will be for others to build on your successes....[Y]ou may come back to edit it at any time.
(Peter adds: A great idea, long needed. Visit the site for helpful ideas and help others by adding your own ideas and experience.)
Thomson Scientific Announces Web Citation Index
Thomson Scientific Announces Web Citation Index - a tool to help us find that content in the repositories! Thanks to Michael McCully.
Eric Lease Morgan on OAI4
Eric Lease Morgan has blogged his experiences at the OAI4 Conference.
Summary:
CERN is an interesting place. Lot's of physicists walking around. If you walk fifty yards east you are in France. The conference was stimulating. It confirmed much of what I had already known. It provided an opportunity to reinforce existing knowledge and articulate current thinking. I strengthened a few relationships and established others. Most importantly, I learned about some of the challenges of creating and maintaining institutional repositories. The issues are not necessarily technical but rather social, legal, and political. I sincerely believe open access publishing through things like institutional repositories can supplement and enhance the scholarly communications process. The goal is not to remove traditional print publishing, but to increase the sphere of knowledge in the most effective means possible.
Thanks to the SPARC Open Access Forum
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
Summary:
CERN is an interesting place. Lot's of physicists walking around. If you walk fifty yards east you are in France. The conference was stimulating. It confirmed much of what I had already known. It provided an opportunity to reinforce existing knowledge and articulate current thinking. I strengthened a few relationships and established others. Most importantly, I learned about some of the challenges of creating and maintaining institutional repositories. The issues are not necessarily technical but rather social, legal, and political. I sincerely believe open access publishing through things like institutional repositories can supplement and enhance the scholarly communications process. The goal is not to remove traditional print publishing, but to increase the sphere of knowledge in the most effective means possible.
Thanks to the SPARC Open Access Forum
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
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