Current Cites
June 2018
Edited by [2]Roy Tennant
Contributors: [3]Charles W. Bailey, Jr., [4]Peter Hirtle, [5]Leo Robert
Klein, [6]Nancy Nyland
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Algenio, Emilie R. "[7]Making the Transition as the New Copyright
Librarian" [8]Journal of Copyright in Education and Librarianship
[9]Kenny Crews was appointed as the first copyright specialist in a
library. Since then the number of libraries that employ copyright
librarians has increased dramatically. But what is it that copyright
librarians do, and how do they spend their time? Algenio addresses
these questions by describing her own transition into the role. Her
story, and the handy list of useful references and tools included in
the appendices, will be of use to anyone who finds themselves in a
similar position. - [10]PH
Emery, Jill. "[11]How Green Is Our Valley?: Five-Year Study of Selected
LIS Journals from Taylor & Francis for Green Deposit of Articles"
to several reports in the scholarly literature, the battle for open
access did not begin in 2001 with the Budapest Open Access Initiative.
Rather, it began in the late 1980's when free journals began to be
published on the Internet by librarians and faculty and authors began
to ask publishers to retain their copyrights. So, here we are about 30
years later and this study finds that self-archiving rates in
institutional repositories for five library and information science
journals published by Taylor&Francis ranged between 18% and 26%. This
result is for a publisher who took steps to encourage self-archiving
from 2011 through 2017. It falls within the general range for
self-archiving activity in all disciplines. The author suggests several
reasons for this level of self-archiving, including administrators
undervaluing self-archiving activities and "imposter syndrome" (i.e.,
librarians aren't perceived as real faculty). The article includes a
link to open data from the study. The question this and similar studies
raise is: should librarians be held to a higher standard than other
scholarly authors? That depends on whether librarians truly have a
higher level of belief and commitment to open access than other
authors. If so, one would expect a higher level of self-archiving
behavior. The battle for open access is a long one, measured in
decades. It won't get any shorter if librarians, who are important open
access supporters, don't walk the talk. - [13]CB
Foster, Anita K. "[14]Determining Librarian Research Preferences: A
Comparison Survey of Web-Scale Discovery Systems and Subject
Databases" [15]The Journal of Academic Librarianship 44(3)(May
2018): 330 - 336.
- Because library users expect a Google-like single search box,
libraries have adopted discovery systems to meet the demand for
centralized searching. Librarians are well aware of what less-than-
optimal results can come from searching a large black box of
information. The more a searcher has at least a general concept of what
is in the box they are searching, the better the results. This survey
of librarians confirms that they prefer subject-specific databases for
their own searching, and the reasons why. The observation of "a lack of
transparency around how information is included in the systems" and
other comments provide an opening for the creators of web-based
discovery systems. "Details about Google Scholar's index, content and
functionality are not readily available," nor likely to be. In
contrast, vendors have an opportunity to address some of the
librarians' concerns articulated here. - [16]NN
Gilliland, Anne T. "[17]The General Data Protection Regulation: What
Does It Mean for Libraries Worldwide?" [18]Association of Research
Libraries Issue Briefs (May
. - The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) is providing guidance
to libraries on the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation
(GDPR), starting with the most basic facts, such as that it took effect
on May 25, 2018. The GDPR applies to EU citizens and residents, whether
resident in Europe, or living or visiting outside the EU. It grants
users the choice to opt out of their personal data being collected,
rather than allowing companies to assume that anyone using a site has
opted in to having their data collected. The GDPR grants six specific
rights that allow users to better control the collection and use of
their personal data. Besides summarizing the GDPR, the issue brief
points readers to [19]an explanation by the Library of Congress and the
EU's [20]GDPR Information Portal. In the introduction, the ARL promises
an update focusing on implementation of the GDPR. - [21]NN
Griffin, Melanie, and Tomaro I Taylor. "[22]Employing Analytics to
Guide a Data-Driven Review of LibGuides" [23]Journal of Web
Librarianship (19 June
are involved with creating research guides, many in fact using
LibGuides. So studies like this which use analytics to find out how our
client base (i.e. students) actually use these guides can be extremely
helpful. The goal, as the article makes clear, is "to create a more
holistic picture of usability that will, in turn, guide more
thoughtful, user-driven creation of library guides." - [24]LRK
Haran, Judith A. "[25]The Nuremberg Trials Project at Harvard Law
School: Making History Accessible to All" [26]Journal of Contemporary
Archival Studies (JCAS) 5(22 Jun
when I was a new archivist, one of the first collections on which I
worked was the National Library of Medicine's collection of court
documents from the medical prosecution at the Nuremburg Trials. In
preparing its [27]finding aid, I learned that the documentary history
of the trials was a mess, with no clear single record copy available
anywhere. The librarians at the [28]Harvard Law School Library
discovered the same thing when they began their ambitious project to
digitize its massive ("between seven and twelve tons of paper")
[29]collection of mimeographed trial documents. Haran notes the
existence of other Nuremburg collections (though she overlooks the set
of documents at NLM) and properly suggests that it may be time for
repositories to cooperate in building a virtual common collection. The
other big take-away for me from this fascinating digitization project
is the massive commitment of human and financial resources it took.
Documents are thoroughly analyzed at the item level, with an average of
15 minutes spent on each document. It is terrific that Harvard has been
able to muster the resources to undertake this level of analysis, but
one wonders if it is a model that is transferable to other large
collections. - [30]PH
Marchant, Jo. "[31]Buried by the Ash of Vesuvius, These Scrolls Are
Being Read for the First Time in Millennia" [32]Smithsonian Magazine
(July
s-are-being-read-new-xray-technique-180969358/). - I have [33]noted in
the past general news articles about Brent Seales and his effort to use
various forms of imaging to read nearly indecipherable texts. Others
are just as fascinated by his efforts, as the recent story about him on
[34]60 Minutes demonstrates. This longer article reviews Seales's
earlier work and then focuses on his most recent investigation of a
papyri fragment in the [35]Bodleian Library at the University of
Oxford. It does a good job of highlighting the technical, financial,
and professional challenges Seales faces. But how exciting it would be
if we could finally make the invisible writing on charred fragments
readable again! - [36]PH
Matthews, Leni, . "[37]Terminology for Librarian Help on the Home
Page" [38]Evidence Based Library and Information Practice
article/view/29405/21868). - The process of choosing terms for web
links leaves designers balancing between a label long enough to be
comprehensible, and one brief enough to be grasped immediately in a
user's first quick scan of a page. Librarians at the University of
Texas at Arlington (UTA) discovered that user comprehension of link
names is different than what page designers might have predicted. In
spite of the usual advice for web designers to keep text on pages
succinct, students preferred a longer link name, "Librarians by
Academic Subject," to shorter ones such as "Ask Us." The students'
preference for a longer link was borne out by a rise in page views
after the name was changed. The UTA librarians confirmed the importance
of user testing and the value of designing for users rather than what
library staff might think users want. - [39]NN
Watkins, Alexander, Bridget Madden, and Alexandra Provo, et.
al.[40]Fair Use in the Visual Arts: Lesson Plans for Librarians
(n.p.): Art Libraries Society of North America, 14 June
79-fair-use-lesson-plans-op17). - ARLIS/NA has produced an interesting
addition to the field of copyright education. This volume provides
overviews of twelve lesson plans developed by visual resource
librarians and used to introduce undergraduate and graduate students to
some of the important elements in copyright. Because the students are
often artists themselves, much of the focus is on how students can use
the work of others in their future professional lives. Each course
includes a summary of what was taught, reflections on the experience,
and a collection of teaching materials and presentation slides in
appendices. Because it is often easier to illustrate key copyright
concepts with visual examples, any librarian who is faced with the
challenge of teaching a workshop on copyright may find material of use.
- [41]PH
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Current Cites - ISSN: 1060-2356 is published by Roy Tennant.
(c) Copyright 2018 Roy Tennant [42]Creative Commons License
