Category: Libraries
The awful case of Diego Gomez and barriers to #OpenAccess
This week I was quite upset by reading about the case of Diego Gomez, a Colombian graduate student who is standing trial, and possibly facing years in prison, for sharing an academic paper on Scribd, with his graduate school peers, some years ago. You can read more about his case and support him via EFF: Diego Gomez trial – EFF support.
This really got me quite angry thinking about how low on the totem pole the sharing of knowledge actually is in academia. The reality is that, because of the system we have, it falls well below the pursuit of individual careers and institutional reputations in a pretty bizarre, competitive and largely unfair game of rankings, ratings and impact factors that all works to reinforce an unsustainable market for academic publishing. (Remember here, that these are just my personal views, not those of my institution and also that I am actually part of that system, so I’m at least partially at fault.)
Governments and funding institutions need some metrics for research performance and output but the current measures for impact seem quite inadequate from a number of perspectives. Currently, they do not, and maybe they cannot, measure effectively and fairly “societal benefit”. As a vendor said to me earlier this week, sometimes the benefit from published research comes to fruition years down the track, so how can we account for that? The economic benefit of research to industry and the commercial sector can take ages to be realised and the links back to the original research may not be clear or comprehensive, so how much of this kind of impact should be directly attributable? The real impact of research is even harder to measure with less tangible outcomes like policy improvements or advances in areas such as public health.
Academics too need some agreed measures for career progression, but many are now openly questioning the value of the current publish or perish driver. It is especially debatable when it encourages and leads to situations in which the published research is locked away from those who might desperately need it by licenses that are unaffordable to all but elite and wealthy Western institutions that can afford the ridiculous fees charged by academic publishers; publishers who rely on academia for their content and then sell it back to them at prices that, as someone once noted, make Rupert Murdoch look like a socialist. Of course, this is news to nobody, but it does make Diego Gomez’ plight seem grossly unfair and unjust. It is an opportunity for us all, researchers, librarians, policy makers, to consider the limitations and inequities of the current system, and how we as individuals and institutions will address them.
As I was busy writing this post I noted with some interest that in an effort to make all publications by Dutch scientists available through Open Access by 2024, Dutch universities plan to boycott one of the big four academic publishers, Elsevier (from 2 July 2015). Apparently they were not able to even come close to an agreement with Elsevier.
11-808 & Conversations : Artist-in-Residence, 2014
Elisa Lee and Adam Hinshaw partnered as the UTS Library Artist-in-Residence for 2014. Works from this Residency are now prominently displayed in the UTS Blake Library in Haymarket, Sydney.
Their brief was to provide an artistic interpretation of the UTS Library Retrieval System (LRS). Their resulting major work 11-808 is a live data visualisation that interprets the use of the LRS in real time. The purpose of the entirely underground system needed to be communicated to a wide audience, illustrating how the system was being used and demonstrating its value to the UTS community. The brief was extremely challenging, with a tight budget and deadline, but Elisa and Adam’s work has exceeded expectations.
The result is an elegant and poetic display of data that shows how this system is being used and, via the catalogue of library metadata, the dynamic movement of collections around the Library ecosystem. Through their artists’ perspective, beauty and the interaction of colour, Elisa and Adam have conveyed meaning and understanding to an extent that I think Joseph Albers* would have approved.
They also provided a playful sound installation, Conversations, that explores the random nature of the ways books are stored within the 11,808 steel bins of the LRS, arranged only by spine height. Here they have provided audible “conversations” between the books in selected bins.
Their work is artistically beautiful, superbly designed and technically very clever. Both works are eloquent in conveying meaning as well as exploring and highlighting the nature of this system. In doing so they have provided attractive and engaging works that appeal to the curiosity of Library users and that speak to them in very contemporary language.
* See also https://www.lib.uts.edu.au/news/304412/colour-on-concrete-exhibition
Reinventing University Publishing – my perspective
This is the presentation I gave as part of a panel representing the perspectives of Open Access publishers in Australian universities, in my case UTS ePress.
And here is a PDF version with my speaker’s notes:
Are libraries Blockbuster in a Netflix world?
I read this earlier today via Zite, over breakfast at a cafe near our library:
It talks about the demise of Blockbuster and the rise of Netflix. Blockbuster made some dumb business decisions and ignored some possible ways to stay afloat, but the author Greg Satell talks about the importance of networks in Netflix’s rise. Blockbuster’s failure to understand the importance of networks also determined their fate. He says that those networks are very difficult to quantify or define, but that we’ve not really tried to understand their importance.
Even though we may work in a much smaller ecosystem (e.g. our library serves a University community), I really believe that our own future strongly depends on what we do within, and how we encourage and contribute to, our own networks. That is why I keep stressing the critical nature of engagement and the fact that everything we do is somehow connected to something else we do. Virtually nothing we do in libraries can actually be sustainably successful if we do it in isolation. I think the chase for efficiency in libraries has actually encouraged silos to develop and this works against those connections we must have within libraries. So far I think we* actually understand this and we actively seek to connect within and to those outside the library pretty well, but it is something we cannot ignore and that we must continue to invest in. The networks we participate in, encourage and contribute to have a positive effect on the development and relevance of our library and we should make them major considerations in all we do. To quote from Greg Satell @digitaltonto :
… we really haven’t scratched the surface on the networks we encounter in real life: The networks of consumers that make up our brands and industries as well as the organizational networks that determine how things get done—or don’t get done—in our enterprises.
And it’s imperative that we start thinking about them more seriously. We need to stop acting as if there is a recipe for business—like a cake or a casserole—and start thinking in terms of how factors are connected.
I am now going to take this analogy a little further… I think the focus of libraries should already be moving from being all about the collections we develop and provide access to, measured mostly in size of collections and numbers of visitors, to the unique collections (of both knowledge and culture) that we help to create and then share with our networks. That, as Greg said, is something that is harder to define and measure. Of course the other key advantage that all libraries have, even in universities, is that they are cultural institutions. Culture provides context for all knowledge, but flourishes within libraries only when it is kept alive.
* UTS Library
UTS Library Retrieval System
The slide show above illustrates the progress from excavation and building to loading of the operational LRS itself.
As you read this UTS Library staff are busy overseeing the load of more than 400,000 books into the Library’s new automated retrieval system (LRS) under Alumni Green. It is exciting to see years of planning come to fruition and to be so close to realising the benefits of the LRS.
By storing low-use physical items in this purpose-built retrieval system we will be able to relieve overcrowding on book shelves in the Library and make room to continue to expand our collection of print resources. Regular library visitors will have noticed the tightly-packed shelves and perhaps occasionally been frustrated by difficulty in locating books. From the end of 2014, only the newest and most highly-used physical items will be housed on open shelves, making it easier to browse and locate items amongst the most popular books from our collection. The LRS also allows for the merger of the Blake and Kuring-Gai libraries at the end of 2015.
We realize that older items in our collection continue to have value and need to remain easily accessible. This was the rationale behind building an on-site retrieval system, rather than using off-site storage from which books could only be retrieved irregularly. Material in our LRS will be delivered regularly, with deliveries scheduled several times each day. It is also the reason we’ve been busy making enhancements to our catalogue so you can find new ways to discover items in our collections by searching and browsing online. Shelf View lets you browse a ‘bookshelf’ displaying book covers, our ‘collection ribbon’ is a unique way to delve in to our collection by subject, and we are working on recommendations and personalisation.
The LRS will therefore let us continue to build our collections, with room to expand to at least 2040, in a carefully controlled and secure environment ensuring the long-term preservation and protection of this valuable resource. It will also help us make our collection accessible by relieving overcrowding on book shelves. Of equal importance, it will help us meet the needs of our clients from study spaces as teaching and learning changes and our student population grows. Currently library space is dominated by book shelves, but increasingly we hear from clients, and observe ourselves, that there are not enough places to study in the Library. And we know we need diverse spaces to facilitate different types of learning from quiet, individual study to participatory group learning. This is why, once the lower use items in our collection are relocated to the LRS, we will be working on delivering new types of spaces for learning and research. We hope as well to provide spaces and technologies that facilitate access to productive activities such as multi-media, gaming and “maker” technologies because many of our students are no longer assessed purely on written output: they are making things like models, videos, games, etc.
We’ve tried to build sustainability into every aspect of the LRS. The building itself has major sustainability features*, and will store books in a highly compact format; storing the same amount of books in a traditional library would require a building 4-5 times larger. We’ve also paid attention to smaller details to reduce the environmental impact of our operations. That’s why, for example, our staff will walk between the LRS and the Blake Library using trollies and backpacks to deliver books, rather than rely on cars which add to traffic congestion and pollution.
The LRS presents an exciting opportunity to expand library services and collections for the future, helping the library play a central role in the learning, teaching and research activities of UTS. You can learn more about the LRS on our website http://www.lib.uts.edu.au/future-library/library-retrieval-system-lrs
* Sustainability Features:
There is no Green Star rating category for a facility such as the LRS, but it benefitted greatly from being constructed under the same project works as the 5 Green Star design rated Thomas St Building (an extension for the Science Faculty and Graduate School of Health). For example, the project utilised the sustainable concrete (required to be made with recycled rainwater) poured on the Thomas St Project for the LRS project. Other elements were the very strict waste management requirements, providing evidence of waste minimisation during construction. The design also incorporates significant natural lighting brought into the LRS picking station area via the large skylight that will double as a viewing lens from Alumni Green.
The LRS itself contains high-grade insulation which minimises energy consumption to the building to control thermal issues. A number of measures have been employed to ensure an easily maintained constant temperature in the book storage Vault. The LRS has been constructed under the Alumni Green with the 600mm of earth together with the insulated concrete providing excellent insulation, far exceeding the insulation requirements. The Vault is also insulated from the Plenum via lightweight insulated panels and insulated concrete and blockwork.
The Plenum itself pre-cools the air to be used in the facility by exposure to the constant cool temperature of exposed rock and concrete that surrounds it. The air path through the plenum is long and winding to ensure the maximum exposure to the surfaces and therefore maximum reduction of outside air temperature. The use of pre-cooled air reduces the energy required by the mechanical plant substantially.
Note: I’ve also posted this here https://www.lib.uts.edu.au/blog/university-librarian/2014/07/our-library-retrieval-system#
Leaked NYT Report on Innovation
Twitter and other social media yesterday was crazy about a leaked 91 page report from the New York Times on innovation in the mobile and digital age (use the Google or contact me if you cannot find it). It primarily addresses their environment of rapidly changing media platforms, but there is a lot in it that also applies to us in library-land. In particular, our own web strategy at UTS Library, which is very informal, and where we are going with our Open Access press UTSePress.
Initially I thought I’d just send it to the managers responsible for those areas, but after quickly reading the lot I found more and more general ideas that I liked, so I sent it to all of our managers and we will all meet to discuss it at a later date. If you can still find it, you’ll see that it isn’t a marvellous copy, but it is mostly readable and I think very valuable, even if it seems mostly to affirm some of our existing directions.
- web publication trends (we’ve been closely following these of late)
- audience reach and why it is important (agreed)
- reader experience (acknowledging it and doing something about it and we must do more in this area)
- having a web strategy – do we want one that is more obvious, a little more formal and that evolves?
- disruption and what it means for us (too)
- content aggregators – what are they, how they impact on us and how we make best use of them
- the importance of discovery – new tools & getting the basics right, like tagging and structure (we’ve been focussing a lot on this for the last couple of years)
- experimentation – how it works, why it is needed (agreed and we do try to encourage this)
- personalisation (see above re discovery as we’re trying to do something like a recommendation engine that our users can opt into)
- using data layers or adding them in (I’m not exactly sure how this applies to us and need to think more about it, but I’m pretty sure we should be doing more in this area)
- user generated content – is that relevant to us? (we are essentially doing that in the physical space now with curations of student works and could extend that to our online presence, perhaps using social media more – we’ve experimented with this a little already)
- events (this is a big area for us and they always have a planned and strong online dimension)
- going “digital first” or digital equally? (I think the latter is more relevant for us – we should not concentrate simply on either digital or physical programs)
- boosting analytics (this is why I desperately want to get some professional UX people into the library)
- employee movement between departments – to boost collaboration & understanding (I think we could really do more here)
- failing, learning, & sharing results (I think we’ve already started on this path)
- making more creative roles not just (passive or responsive) service roles: makers, entrepreneurs, advocates, observers (agreed)
Photos from Iraq (2008)
Before I came to UTS I was working at the Australian War Memorial. In late 2008 I visited Iraq and the Northern Arabian Gulf area for the Memorial, collecting and recording records of war before all Australian forces were withdrawn. This post from the AWM website explains:
Recently I was advised by a former colleague that some of the photos I took (including the image above) are now available on the AWM website (which means they’ve finally cleared security):
James B. Hunt Jr. Library, NCSU
Hunt Library, NCSU, a set on Flickr.
Via Flickr:
Here is a large set of images from the new James B. Hunt Jr Library at North Carolina State University (NCSU).
I was fortunate enough to attend the second Designing Libraries Conference that was held this year in the Hunt Library. It was massively over-subscribed by librarians from all over North America and various parts of the rest of the world, such is its reputation already.
There are some duplicates in this set (high & low res versions) because I had uploaded many in low res format whilst travelling. I’ve tried to add some explanatory text to the most significant images as well as titles and tags. If you’re confused or really interested in something just leave a comment in Flickr.
Please have a decent look as I think they’ve really done a brilliant job.
The library is a credit to the vision of Susan K. Nutter (Vice Provost and Director) and her staff, the architects Snøhetta & Clark Nexsen and the design team.
And for those of you too lazy to look through all those images on Flickr, here is a slide show set to the Cillo remix of Bon Iver’s Calgary:
A comment on my work blog asked for information about how spaces in the Hunt Library (or our own future library) relate to teaching, learning and research strategies. Rather than just reply directly I thought I would put some additional information in this blog post along those lines. Thanks to my colleagues Belinda, Sally and Beth who provided comment and suggestions on all of this. So here it is, mind the step …
One of the most impressive aspects of the Hunt Library is how it has been planned with the broader university mission in mind, and encapsulates the aspirations of NCSU. As a research-intensive, technology University, NCSU’s mission and goal statement is not so different to ours at UTS:
As a research-extensive land-grant university, North Carolina State University is dedicated to excellent teaching, the creation and application of knowledge, and engagement with public and private partners. By uniting our strength in science and technology with a commitment to excellence in a comprehensive range of disciplines, NC State promotes an integrated approach to problem solving that transforms lives and provides leadership for social, economic, and technological development across North Carolina and around the world.
Its aspirational vision statement is also similar to ours:
NC State University will emerge as a preeminent technological research university recognized around the globe for its innovative education and research addressing the grand challenges of society.
As the gateway to knowledge for NCSU and its partners, the NCSU’s libraries play an important role in achieving this vision.
Hunt Library is one of two main libraries on campus, and is described as the face of NCSU in the 21st century, a space that expands the frontiers of learning and research. To enhance innovative learning and teaching practices, Hunt provides a place for students to connect to peers, faculty and researchers across disciplines, work with tools that erase distance and promote collaboration, access world-class research collections, showcase their work in digital and physical displays, and explore new technologies that encourage and enable the creation of games, films and music, and working with “big data”, 3D models or prototypes. It is also a space designed to inspire and elevate; encouraging creativity, curiosity and the pursuit of new knowledge through the quality of the building’s design and finish, the ubiquity of accessible technology, the thoughtful inclusion of collections, scholarly reading rooms and exhibition spaces throughout the building, and a program of cultural events and displays.
For other members of the NCSU community, including faculty, researchers and industry partners, purpose-designed, technology-enriched spaces enhance their teaching, research and scholarly activities in line with the NCSU vision to be a leading technological research university and an innovation centre for their region driving economic and social benefits.
These are achievements we think our future library should aspire to in order to support our own strategies for learning and research.
Fortunately we have a strong basis to build a library that furthers the UTS vision to be a world-leading university of technology and provides a competitive advantage for UTS. Like Hunt Library, our Library Retrieval System (LRS), will free library space from housing our entire collection of print material, enabling expanded spaces for a full range of scholarly activities, while keeping the collection easily accessible. Looking to the successful example of Hunt, the types of spaces we will provide should include:
- a variety of individual and group study spaces from quiet individual study to group study spaces that account for different learning needs and individual preferences;
- ample power, data and wifi to cater for current and future technology;
- incubator spaces for exploring new technologies;
- digital media editing and production facilities;
- sophisticated areas for creating simulations and virtual environments;
- gaming spaces for the scholarly study of games;
- panoramic (digital) displays to showcase academic and student work;
- makerspaces for model making; and
- spaces for special collections and exhibitions that provide exposure to culture and inspiration.
Importantly and in addition to the spaces and technologies in their libraries, both NCSU and UTS libraries provide services that enable the success of their students and support researchers including:
- improved information discovery through online catalogue search and discovery tools;
- online reference, interlibrary loan, access to 7.2 million shared books available on request through Bonus+;
- open and closed reserve services for all required textbooks and 24 hour access to electronic reserves;
- online guides to library resources for all faculties;
- lending services for technologies such as laptops, tablets and e-readers;
- Copyright and eScholarship services, collaborating with scholars on digital publications, our digital repository, IP/Copyright issues and our Open Access press – UTS ePress;
- extensive data support services providing advice (via training sessions and consultations) on data management planning, discovery, description, sharing and preservation;
- research support services from specialist librarians who have experience in searching for resources in particular fields;
- training and instructional support, from literature review to navigating subject specific databases and also advice on how to find, use and attribute unrestricted resources such as images, film and media; and
- tailored information literacy programs from orienting new students to expert researchers, – including workshops, video tutorials or games such as treasure or scavenger hunts.
We see that a future library like Hunt can create a new heart for our redeveloped campus that helps form a hub of creative collaboration between students, academic staff, researchers and industry partners. Just as Hunt Library has done, our future library could become the University’s intellectual, cultural and social centre. The future library should promote learning and knowledge creation, enable experimentation, support innovative projects and partnerships and showcase UTS research and scholarship, providing inspiration for our current and future students. It should complement other campus redevelopment projects that breathe life into the aspirations of our University.
Design Thinking and UTS Library
I gave this presentation to a Victorian audience of mostly librarians on 28 August 2013. It outlines our journey with Design Thinking. The text is embedded against each slide below. (It is downloadable.)
Collection Visualisation
This post is just a collection of examples that relate to the visualisation of collections. It saves me sending a number of tweets back to two colleagues in the US who started a conversation about this over the weekend: @sjwilder100 (from UNC Charlotte Library) & @lorcanD (from OCLC)
Several researchers are doing some interesting work in this space and I think it is pretty important. Adding some kind of visual layer to catalogues, search or discovery tools provides us with a capabilty that is largely missing in the cultural sector at present. Most searches focus solely on text-based initiators or they provide text-based lists of search results. Open data, the encouragement to collaborate in coding and the need to either search visually or to visualise search results is leading towards much improved collection discovery. This makes the collections we provide more easily found, used, explored, enjoyed, linked and shared. So here are a few examples that I’m aware of, in no particular order, mind the step:
Marian Dörk is a postdoc researcher at Newcastle University. You can see several examples of his visualisations here http://mariandoerk.de/ I like the PivotPaths and you can even demonstrate them for yourself on his site http://mariandoerk.de/pivotpaths/
Mitchell Whitelaw does some fascinating research relating to collection visualisation and has worked with archival, photographic and art collections. You can see an example relating the the exploration of Australian Prints here (a research project with Ben Ennis Butler) http://mtchl.net/explore-australian-prints-printmaking/ What I like about Mitchell’s work is that he crafts in some great design that entices the user to explore because the interfaces are both generous and beautiful.
Tim Wray is still undertaking his PhD at Wollongong, but he has already done some interesting work with art collections that provides navigable pathways for collection exploration: http://timwray.net/2012/12/create-pathways-at-your-fingertips/
Mr Chris Gaul was UTS Library’s first Artist-in-Residence in 2012 and you can see some of his conceptual ideas for collection discovery here: http://www.chrisgaul.net/utslibrary/ His Library Spectogram is shown in the image above and was the inspiration for our colourful collection ribbon that allows you to browse our monograph collection or see your search results presented visually http://find.lib.uts.edu.au/
Paul Hagon is a friend and former colleague who is the Web Developer at the National Library of Australia. He has done some interesting experiments relating to colour and search results in visual collections. Here is a search by colour experiment: http://ll04.nla.gov.au/ and here is a concept that visualises the colours of tags used in Flickr http://www.paulhagon.com/2010/05/14/colours-of-a-tag/
Over the last few days Serendip-o-matic was released. It is a collaborative project by a team of twelve people from academia, libraries and museums and I know of researchers here aut UTS who have already found it very intriguing. What is really great about this is the serendipity it provides. So go on, give it a whirl!
I know that I’ll have left out some other great examples from people working in this space including Georgina Hibberd, a researcher at UTS who has some really wonderful ideas about visualisation and the discovery of library collections. So, if you know of someone worthwhile, just let me know and I’ll add them to this little collection.
Postscript additions:
Since I first posted this Marian Dork has reminded me of the very beautiful and playful interfaces created at the University of Calgary in their Bohemian Bookshelf http://www.alicethudt.de/BohemianBookshelf/ My apologies for forgetting to add them to the list above earlier.
FromMelbin 