Show your support for public access to federally funded research

The issue of public access to federally funded research is the subject of new legislation that has been introduced by Rep. Conyers (MI) in the House Judiciary committee. Under the misnomer, “Fair Copyright in Research Works” HR 801 would reverse the NIH Public Access mandate. This mandate stipulated that publications based on research funded by the NIH must be deposited in PubMed within one year of publication thus making them freely available to the public. The results of that mandate are obvious. A record number of publications were deposited in January 2009. More than 4500 manuscripts are now publicly available for the public that funds that research with their taxpayer dollars. You can see the results of the mandate by the number of manuscripts that have been deposited since the mandate went into effect. See http://www.arl.org/sparc/advocacy/nih/index.shtml
This is research that helps provide the latest information on new treatments for breast cancer, diabetes, and other health-related issues of interest to so many of us. One of the publishers opposed to the NIH mandate is the same publisher that posted profits of more than $1.5 billion dollars in 2008 (and also a contributor to many members of the House Judiciary Committee). Representative Betty McCollum is a member of the House Appropriations Committee. Please contact Rep. McCollum at her website if you are in favor of taxpayer access for federally funded research, and let her know you are opposed to HR801. Deadline to contact your Rep. is Feb. 28th.
More Information - Alliance for Taxpayers Access

Open Access Day, Oct. 14

Once school begins, it is sometimes difficult to find time to sit and think, much less write. But now that September has blown past, it's time to get back to writing about issues that are important in the library.

Next Tuesday, October 14, is the first Open Access Day. In my mind, this is similar to my experience with the first Earth Day, when I became involved in issues related to saving the environment. April 22, 1970 was a pivotal day, but 38 years later we are still facing many, if not more, of the same problems. Environmental protection has been a long, ongoing struggle--and so is the fight to make information accessible and available. By equating Open Access Day with Earth Day, I am saying, yes, it is that important. Currently, we are in the midst of an economic meltdown; the Presidential campaign is probably the most significant election in my lifetime. Yet Open Access Day is also critically important for everyone. Open Access is about:

1. Promoting "unrestricted sharing of research results with everyone, everywhere, for the advancement and enjoyment of science and society." [Open Access Day.]

2. Protecting your "right to know." Copyright legislation is constantly being introduced to restrict your access to information. [Recent legislation by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) introduced the Fair Copyright in Research Works Act (H.R. 6845) on September 9 to overturn the NIH Mandate.]

3. Preventing corporations from taking control of intellectual property in a variety of areas, including food production. It is, as Lawrence Lessig writes, about the "Future of Ideas."

4. Controlling escalating prices, whether for journals, textbooks, or books, that cannot be justified. Because publishers have little competition in this area, prices will continue to rise--further limiting your access to information.

5. Protecting an author's rights to his or her own scholarly work. Scholars are not paid for the articles they publish in subscription-based scholarly publications. In fact, they give away their work--and their own institution's libraries have to pay to provide access to their work. Many times faculty are not even allowed to use their own works in class without permission from the publisher. While Open Access does not mean "free" access--someone has to provide a means for distributing articles in an OA environment--it does mean scholars may freely use their own works.

6. Your support. Open Access is a movement that needs your support because it is an attempt to address the erosion of access to and fair use of scholarly information. To not act is to risk further erosion.

I could go on, but others have made more eloquent statements that you should read. Google SPARC, or Open Access Day, or read in Wikipedia to find out more. Check out Peter Suber's blog on open access.

Meanwhile for Open Access Day at Macalester, we're hosting an Open Access Day videoconference at 6 p.m. in the Harmon Room. Food will be served to those who register prior to the event. (See Library News for RSVP.) To show your support for Open Access, drop by the Reference Desk all day on Tuesday, and receive a free nifty button (shown at top).

Library Relevancy

A recent notice in the Chronicle of Higher Education entitled, “Scholars' Views of Libraries as Portals Shows Marked Decline” caught my attention. The article referred to a report recently released by Ithaka entitled "Ithaka's 2006 Studies of Key Stakeholders in the Digital Transformation in Higher Education." As we (along with so many other academic libraries) are actively involved in migrating our print collections to online digital formats, I wanted to review what the Ithaka report had to offer in order to possibly enlighten me as to measures we could take to strengthen our portal and gateway. The report focused on “three ‘roles’ of the library—purchaser, archive and gateway.” As noted in the report, these roles are described in the survey by the “statement ‘the library pays for resources I need from academic journals to books to electronic databases,’ the archive role by ‘the library serves as a repository of resources—in other words it archives, preserves, and keeps track of resources,’ and the gateway role by ‘the library is a starting point or ‘gateway’ for locating information for my research.” [footnote 6, page 5] Generally, I take surveys with a certain grain of salt. I often question whether our faculty and students match those likely to have been included in the survey. As an example, OCLC released a survey entitled “Perceptions of Libraries and Information Resources” in 2005. One of the most frequently reported statistics based on this survey is the statement “two percent of college students begin an information search on a library Web site.” When I checked the numbers, this statement was based on collecting data from 396 individuals in six countries ranging in age from 15 to 57. Since our students are all within the age of 17-22, I felt we could probably ascertain that this group was not closely matched to our own. Nevertheless, that statement still wasn’t an earth shattering newsflash as when it started appearing prominently in various publications, most academic librarians were aware that students were ten times more likely to start their research with Google than with our web page. In our instruction sessions, we now try to at least steer them to GoogleScholar.

However, to get back to the report, since we just recently implemented our Macalester WorldCat Local as one means to try and attract users to start their research from our library main page, I was curious as to possible insights I might get from the report. Unfortunately, statements such as “There appears to be a growing ambivalence about the campus library.” [p5] and a section entitled, “The [In]Visibility of the Library” increased my fears that this might be closer to the “Deserted Library” article that Scott Carlson published many years ago. Nevertheless, it should be pointed out that there are many valuable tables and statements that are of interest to us, and worthy of further reflection. As with all surveys that try to point out how we can improve, this will generate some conversations in a variety of venues. The Chronicle article noted that Steven Bell wrote some commentary in the ACRL Blog. Steven’s point in this blog was that this report neglected to consider the "academic library’s role as learning center and instruction partner." At this time of year as we begin the process of introducing our newest members of our community into our “Community of Inquiry,” I can look at our daily calendar with at least two or three library sessions every day and agree that we have been fortunate in developing a strong partnership with so many members of our faculty. I believe that our role as partners in the process of helping students understand what it means to be part of the scholarly communication process is not only very strong , but a role that continues to help keep us relevant. However, there is another role that many academic libraries are now assuming, including ours, which I believe will be just as valuable for the faculty as our partnership in instruction.

One of our newest roles is our role as publisher. The roles we take on--connecting users to information resources through our gateways and portals, our role in providing instruction on how to not only access, but use the information in a responsible way, and assisting students in taking the information they find and then producing new knowledge – seem to reach a natural conclusion and connection by assisting our community with publishing their findings. Our DigitalCommons is an example of utilizing the digital environment to produce open access journals and provide access to our student honors projects and award winning papers. These are valuable contributions that help us complete the circle of providing access, instruction, and now production of new knowledge. These are also the contributions that I feel help contribute to keeping the DeWitt Wallace Library relevant.

To conclude, although I have some concerns related to the report on how to keep the library “relevant”, possibly the greatest sense of satisfaction that I have occurs on a day like today when I walk through the main level of the library on a beautiful sunny day of a three day weekend and see that every computer on the main level is in use, that the service desks are both engaged with patrons, there is another group scanning the DVD collection, and that there is activity in almost all areas that clearly demonstrates that our students do not see the library as ‘[in]visible. The cynic could say that the computers are being used to do email, or some other non-library related activity, but no matter what they are engaged in, they are here. The library is fulfilling some need and whether they are actively taking advantage of the services and information products we have to offer or using us a means for social connection, it is good they are here. This is not to say that I won’t share the Ithaka report with my staff and solicit feedback, but I do feel some measure of satisfaction in knowing that the physical presence of so many strongly counteracts the “perceptions” of the few.

Class of 2012 Arrives

We held our annual orientation activities last Friday. Events are taking place a week earlier this year due to the arrival of the RNC next week. We generally try to have a significant amount of fun while also taking time to meet new students, greet their parents, and make them feel welcome in their new community. In addition to our fun event of remote-controlled car races, we distribute a free coffee mug to all incoming students, and we provide root beer floats for new students and parents in the afternoon. One event that was new for us this year was to set aside a time specifically for parents to meet with the liaison librarian connected to their son or daughter's first year course. Each first year course now has a requirement to include at least one session on the library. The library liaisons partner with our associates in ITS, the AIAs (Academic Information Associates) to meet with all first year courses to provide an overview of our services and network features, introduce them to key concepts about information fluency, as well as introduce them to some friendly faces and people to turn to when they need help. This year we produced bookmarks based on our READ posters program and featured each of the liaison librarians, listed their department subject responsibilities, and the AIA who was connected with them for each department. These bookmarks were made available to parents so that they could have something to refer back to when their son or daughter called home asking for help. We encouraged the parents to refer them to us. We also ran a slide show of library liaisons with a photo of the faculty member teaching the course. This new event turned out to be very popular and we found that not only were parenets interested in meeting the librarians, many first year students also took advantage of introducing themselves to their liaison librarian. Our emphasis on personal service seemed to strike a chord with both parents and students, especially since we emphasized that this assistance wasn't just limited to their first year course. We know that as they start out their academic career, they may be in courses this semester that require research projects, but don't have a libary instruction session. Therefore, if they need assistance, we encouraged them to contact their liaison librarian who will either help assist them or connect them with the appropriate librarian who can. We were serving root beer floats throughout this session and since we know we served up over 200 root beer floats, we had a pretty good turnout. I'm looking forward to seeing many of the students who I met either because they were in one of the two courses I'll be working with, or because I ended up meeting several of the 47 students in the first year class who come from my original home state, California. The new year is off to a good start and I'm hoping to see more of Rachel, Grace, Rigo, and Danielle as we proceed further into this year. And if any parents come across this posting and have some feedback on how we did this year, we'd love to hear from you.

Space Planning in the DeWitt Wallace Library

I’ve had a front row seat in watching the new athletic center develop over the past 18 months. With close-up views of the construction from the second floor of the library, I was able to observe the steady progress, and then the rush to the finish--grass that “miraculously” appeared overnight, and the disappearance of the construction barriers I had grown used to. The completion of the project brings all the accompanying excitement and anticipation of what the new building will hold, in addition to access to the new pool (very high on my list of priorities right now). It's close, but not quite equal to the same excitement I felt when this library was completed in 1988. Despite a few minor challenges when the doors first opened, we knew we had a great building that would be flexible enough to meet the changing needs of the following 25 years. And how things have changed over the past 20 years!

The class of 2012 will perhaps not realize just how much things have changed because they have always known life with the Internet. Even the new faculty members arriving just before the class of 2012 may not have a real sense of how dramatically academic libraries have changed. When we entered this building in 1988, the Internet as we know it didn’t exist. Gopher (check it out on Wikipedia) wasn’t developed until 1991. Gopher, developed at the U of M, was the first “user friendly” method (using new "hyperlinks") to manage and provide access to documents residing in academic institutions across the globe. Gopher was replaced by Mosaic, followed by Netscape Navigator, and the rest is history. The development of the Web-- a graphic interface to the Internet--has produced one of the most dramatic changes ever for libraries. This change will affect physical spaces in libraries, as well as content, as we proceed further into the 21^st century. This change is, of course, the ongoing transition from print to electronic content.

When JSTOR was introduced thirteen years ago, it was intended to provide a digital archive of essential core journals for academic libraries. JSTOR was the first of several initiatives that developed because of the ability to provide access over the Internet. By transferring traditional print format to digitial, JSTOR had the potential to not only preserve, but increase access via electronic means. Multiple users could simultaneously access a single article or journal issue, and users could easily search the text of multiple volumes and journals at once. In addition, librarians realized that this digitization project also provided them with an opportunity to reduce the space needed to house print collections. JSTOR was just the beginning of a dramatic change in how journals were produced and distributed. It was shortly after the introduction and success of JSTOR, that journal producers started looking at methods to publish online. For the past ten years, we have been in a dual platform world, with journals produced, and often made available in libraries in both print and electronic versions. We know, however, that most students and faculty now prefer to access journals from their desktops or laptops. With this in mind, the staff of the DeWitt Wallace Library have developed a plan to strategically migrate all of our journal subscriptions from print to electronic versions. Our goal is to have no more than 200 journals in a print browsing collection by the end of 2010. The number “200” represents our best estimate of those journals that either don’t exist in an electronic version, or journals that are best viewed in a print version.

We are looking ahead to the next twenty-five years, as more space becomes available because of the transfer from print to digital. How can we best use the spaces we will be gaining? The three major collections on the main level—journals, newspapers, and reference books--will be shrinking their physical space even as their online presence grows larger. At the same time, our popular Harmon Room current books, and DVD collections are growing beyond the spaces designated for them. Members of the Library and Media Services staff spent part of last year studying space use and identifying possible alternative designs that would allow us to increase group and personal instruction, group access to computers, and to address growing multimedia needs. To help determine how best to meet the ongoing needs of our campus community, we convened an informal focus group with students last Spring, and we plan to hold more focus groups with students and faculty this Fall. We want to prepare for our 25^th anniversary in 2013 by thoughtfully evaluating how we (in our flexible building) can best meet new demands and new uses for the next twenty-five years. I invite members of the community to let us know your thoughts. There are several ways in which you may be involved in teh discussion. You can respond via this blog. Faculty members may wish to invite their liaison librarian to a departmental meeting to discuss these issues. Both faculty and students serve on the Library, Media, Web Services advisory committee. We’ll be seeking student representatives from MCSG for the 2008-09 academic year. If you are interested in this discussion, please volunteer with MCSG to be a student representative on the advisory committee. I look forward to an ongoing dialogue with everyone in our community as we envision the DeWitt Wallace Library in the next decade of the 21^st century.