Research data is an essential part of the scholarly record, and management of research data is increasingly seen as an important role for academic libraries. This article presents the results of a survey of directors of the Association of European Research Libraries (LIBER) academic member libraries to discover what types of research data services (RDS) are being offered by European academic research libraries and what services are planned for the future. Overall, the survey found that library directors strongly agree on the importance of RDS. As was found in earlier studies of academic libraries in North America, more European libraries are currently offering or are planning to offer consultative or reference RDS than technical or hands-on RDS. The majority of libraries provide support for training in skills related to RDS for their staff members. Almost all libraries collaborate with other organizations inside their institutions or with outside institutions in order to offer or develop policy related to RDS. We discuss the implications of the current state of RDS in European academic research libraries, and offer...
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The 2017 EDUCAUSE Top 10 IT Issues are all about student success. Information technology in higher education continues to have many priorities and serve numerous constituents. IT service catalogs comprise hundreds of services to meet the many needs of faculty, students, and staff in various fields: the humanities; social, biological, and physical sciences; law; music; theater; art; business; and healthcare and allied professions. You name it, higher education offers it, and the IT organization supports it. Every academic and administrative area makes its own, separate demands on the IT organization, at any time and from any place. Despite the many and disparate requirements of each user and each technology, a predominant focus has risen to the top for higher education information technology in 2017, and that focus is student success. Colleges and universities are concentrating on student success to address concerns about the costs, value, and outcomes of higher education. Student success initiatives are making use of every available resource and opportunity and are involving every relevant stakeholder. Institutional technology is all three: resource, opportunity,...
Read moreA great deal has been written about the benefits of open access and it should be intuitively obvious to all librarians (and really anyone) that universal free open access will be the optimum for the benefit of information availability for humankind. This the EU is moving to open access for all papers they fund by 2020. How this will occur is still being determined. The problem with open access has always been how to fund the publishing of academic journals appropriately. This article proposes a new method of funding universal open access to all academic fields using efficiency gains available to all academics. Better still all of these efficiency gains are currently accessible to science funders and is in line with their missions.
http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/76/pearce
The paper considers how the changing nature of research in digital environments is reshaping the nature of library collections and services in academic and research libraries. It describes two central directions, each a response to the centrality of the user in a network environment. First, the library has an increasing role in managing the research and other outputs of the university (the inside-out collection). Second, the library is facilitating access to a broader range of local, external and collaborative resources organized around user needs (the facilitated collection).
https://www.liberquarterly.eu/articles/10.18352/lq.10170/
Librarians have witnessed a dramatic change in students’ and researchers’ use of print materials housed in their collections. The convenience and immediacy of electronic texts has significantly altered both reading and research practices. Added to this are the space pressures higher education institutions are experiencing. More interactive classrooms, collaborative work spaces, places where interdisciplinary work can advance, digital humanities labs—all are in demand, but options for creating new spaces are severely limited due to financial constraints.
http://www.sr.ithaka.org/blog/the-future-of-the-print-record/
Our research examined the degree to which behaviours and learning associated with creativity and innovation were supported in five academic library spaces and three other spaces at a mid-sized university. Based on survey data from 226 students, we apply a number of statistical techniques to measure student perceptions of the types of learning and behaviour associated with the selected spaces. We found that the on-campus makerspace located outside the library encouraged the most innovative behaviours and exploration of new ideas. Within the library, collaboration rooms were the best spaces for encouraging creativity. There is an opportunity for the academic library to be reconceptualised as a place to foster creativity and innovation in students. We believe that academic libraries should continue to offer a variety of spaces for students, including quiet spaces for reflection, noisy spaces for collaboration and networking, and makerspaces for experimentation.
http://crl.acrl.org/content/78/1/35.full.pdf+html
