95% of librarians believe in OA future

According a study provided by an OA european publisher.

“The survey revealed high levels of awareness of OA – 95% of the respondents stated they were very or quite familiar with the OA model.  Librarians highlight a number of benefits of OA publishing models:

• Ease of access to content
• Increased visibility, usage and impact for authors
• Improved sharing and collaboration
• Improved public engagement with research
• Broad benefits for society of improved access to research
• Improved return on investment for funders of research

Additionally:

• 78% of respondents support OA publishing, with only 5.5% stating they oppose the model.
• 95% believe OA is already delivering benefits, or will do in the future.

Librarians did express some concern about OA publishing models.  In particular that the charges levied by publishers would create a barrier for authors with limited access to funding, while opening up the potential for ‘vanity’ publishing for those with funds.”

The full article:

Skelton, Val. How OA is changing the role of librarians, Information Today Europe, 5th of July 2012, Available from: http://www.infotoday.eu/Articles/Editorial/Featured-Articles/How-OA-is-changing-the-role-of-librarians-83586.aspx [Accessed 9th July 2012]

Pharma: why they are wrong when they “eliminate” librarians

A great article in Bio-ITWorld:

“…many life science organizations—Pfizer and Genentech are just two recent examples—have cut back or eliminated their library research staff, believing the myth that everything is free on the Internet. Many more are experimenting with outsourcing research librarian services to India or China—producing unsatisfactory and low quality work. (…)

Making the right decisions based on insightful analysis of the most relevant data can make a critical difference in companies whose futures rely on new product development. (…)

(Librarians) can execute these complex searches in sophisticated databases, where the relevant information is extracted from “noisy” irrelevant content. (…)

If your organization is willing to subject all of your investment of time, funding, and hard work to the vagaries of risk and failure, then surfing through oceans of un-vetted information on the Internet is fine. But if you want to vastly improve your chances of success, whether it be identifying a lucrative research area or achieving regulatory approval, then it is time to urgently rethink your stale image of the trusted research librarian.”

Ben-Shir, Rya & Feng, Alexander. Reevaluating the role of the research librarian. Bio-ITWorld, Posted on September 27, 2011.
http://www.bio-itworld.com/issues/2011/sept-oct/reevaluating-role-research-librarian.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Social Media: role of librarians

The ALISS (Association of Librarians and Information Professionals in the Social Sciences) one day summer conference – Social Media, Libraries, Librarians and Research Support (held at Coventry University in July 2011) attracted over 30 delegates from university libraries, the British Library, hospitals and publishers.

Some findings:

• Adoption of Web 2.0 tools has little to do with the age of academics but seems to depend more on the ‘type’ of person they are.
• Academic adoption of Web 2.0 tools is hindered by their concerns about quality and lack of trust.
• There are a multitude of Web 2.0 tools that are freely available and it is essential that researchers use tools that are relevant to their needs.
• Librarians and information professionals are ideally placed to raise awareness of Web 2.0 tools and applications, to help academics find appropriate tools, and to provide any necessary training.

  Presentations are at:
  http://www.slideshare.net/heatherdawson

Library bloggers appear to be turning to social media

Based on 1,108 professional and personal blogs (Library and Information Science related) indexed by LibWorm, this study tends to show that adoption of FaceBook and Twitter has a negative effect on blogs production.

Some findings:

The importance of blogs, however, has been affected by the arrival of new tools for social networking (e.g., Facebook and Twitter), which now rival blogs as primary communications media tools on the Internet.

Once blogs were at the core of social networks, but now the Web 2.0 conversation has fragmented, with general interest shifting away from blogs in favor of other platforms. Indeed, the bloggers themselves are the ones who, as early adopters, have popularized the newer applications.

Libraries and information centers have been especially active in the creation and management of blogs as part of a communications strategy for offering new services for their patrons

The results obtained show a loss of significance for blogs as a communications medium for the LIS community, as indicated by the closure of blogs and the reduction in gross number of posts being published. These losses have been constant and steady and have affected all the blog types studied, personal and corporate.

These figures could merely be showing that bloggers have been migrating to other services and applications that are increasing in usage, specifically Twitter and Facebook.

 In all cases the corporate blogs presented values thatwere significantly lower than personal blogs and only blogs of academic or public libraries had figures of any significance, demonstrating that success and visibility in the blogosphere is closely linked to personal initiative.

Conclusion:

The decline in personal blogs is less pronounced than in corporate, and productivity and visibility patterns in both categories show that personal blogs are more active and have greater impact than corporate blogs. A small core collection of blogs, a reference group for the LIS community, seems to persist despite the general decline.

Torres-Salinas, D., et al., State of the library and information science blogosphere after social networks boom: A metric approach, Library & Information Science Research (2011), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lisr.2010.08.001

Librarians networking with users online

It is still early days, writes David Stuart, but there are plenty of potential benefits.

“Whenever a new social network site appears, librarians are often amongst the first to be found putting it through its paces (…)

However, if you delve below the surface, you quickly discover a far more complex information landscape. There are vast differences in the extent to which libraries are making use of the social network site opportunities, from the academic libraries that have been quick to embrace the potential of social network sites, to the corporate sector, which has been more circumspect. (…)

… there is the problem that other methods of communication, such as email and the phone, are already well established within many organisations. According to the principle of least effort, if the established methods of communication are ‘good enough’, most users won’t make the effort to try something new.

The challenge for libraries is to find ways to embrace social network sites and technologies without killing their potential. To do this they need to strike a balance between the risks of an open system and the lack of communication in a closed system. They must also balance strict rules that protect an organisation from potentially damaging staff behaviour with giving staff the room to innovate.

Stuart, David. Librarians and researchers network online. Research Information, August/September 2010, pp. 12-13
http://www.researchinformation.info/features/feature.php?feature_id=279

Social Media and Libraries: the EBSCO survey

EBSCO has just published first results of their european survey about social medias usage by libraries.

Some findings I noticed:

• 62% of librarians have a positive perception of social media
• Main goals of creating social media:
  • to maximise library exposure
  • to modernise the library image
• Main social media targetted by libraries:
  • Social networks (FaceBook, etc.)
  • Blogging
  • Widgets
  • Twitter
• Only 14% of libraries implemented with preliminary survey of end users
• Main difficulties when implementing:
  • Takes too much time to maintain
• Main success factors:
  • Good understanding of end users needs
• French libraries are the less enthusiastic in Europe

Harnesk, Jakob. Social Media in libraries: European survey findings. Presentation available on line:
http://www.slideshare.net/jhoussiere/social-media-usage-in-libraries-in-europe-survey-teaser

SharePoint: lessons learned by a library

This paper deals with how a library got used with SharePoint 2007.

Weaknesses:

• “The problem with SP is getting started“
• “SP isn’t an “install and go” program“: trainings are required

Strenghts:

• Nice integration with the Office suite
• Single sign-on for whatever
• You push information to grups using permissions
• Each user automatically gets “MySite”
• “It’s pretty clear that SP can do some cool stuff“
• “SP is a lot like a Swiss Army Knife. It can do a ton of different things...”
• “We’ve found that people who love SharePoint also love talking about SharePoint” !!!

Advices:

• “Start small but think big“
• “Plan ahead for unexpected growth”
• “Make sure the infrastructure and organization of your SP instance is extensible and flexible“

Ennis, Lisa E. & Tims, Randy S. Harnessing the power of SharePoint for Library applications. Computers in Libraries, Vol.30, N°5, June 2010. pp6-13. Online:
http://www.infotoday.com/cilmag/jun10/Ennis_Tims.shtml

Libraries can mobilize!

The Gerry McKiernan’s blog is completely devoted to mobile world applied to
Libraries

http://mobile-libraries.blogspot.com/

Of interest: Journal of Library Innovation

Was released recently a new open-access journal to publish original research, literature reviews, commentaries, case studies, reports on innovative practices, and book, conference and product reviews. Mainly focused on various innovative practices in Library:

The Journal of Library Innovation (JOLI) is a peer reviewed, electronic journal published by the Western New York Library Resources Council. Its mission is to disseminate research and information on innovative practice in libraries of all types.

The Journal also welcomes provocative essays that will stimulate thought on the current and future role of libraries in an Internet Age.

Good luck to JOLI!

http://www.libraryinnovation.org/

Library blogs are not dead (yet)

The author studied more than 600 “liblogs”, what some call the biblioblogosphere.

There were a number of interesting partial trends. In 2009, the silly claim that “blogging is dead” seemed to have increased — and it was hard not to notice that the 500 blogs in his Bloglines account weren’t requiring as much time to scan as they had a year before.

The bottom line: Library people seem to be starting fewer new blogs and walking away more often; people are posting fewer posts — but still they blog

Crawford, Walt. But still they blog. Online, Vol.34, N°2, March/April 2010. pp. 58-61