It's Academic

Open Access 2020: Looking at the Future

July 5, 2018

On Friday, June 8th of this year, the American Libraries Live held a webinar entitled “Open Access 2020: Looking at the Future,” which examines the global initiative (and obstacles) of unlocking scholarly periodicals and publications from the current and traditional approach of subscriptions to an alternative model which allows for new, open access (OA) publishing models. The presenters include Colleen Campbell of the OA2020 Partner Development with the Max Planck Digital Library in Munich, Germany, Rich Schneider, Associate Professor at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine, and Curtis Brundy, Associate University Librarian for Scholarly Communications and Collections with Iowa State University Library. Together, the three of them present a very convincing webinar about the necessity for open access and the advantages of moving away from the current subscription (paywall) system for scholarly journals and publications.

Open access enables communities to have unrestricted use and re-use of scholarly publications. The bottom line is that the current subscription system for scholarly journals and publications is just downright too expensive for most colleges and universities to afford. I witnessed this first-hand when I was interning last year at DeSales University’s Trexler Library and was assisting one of the public services librarians with interlibrary loans. My first task would be to check the Internet to see if a requested article was already available in its entirety. I would do a little happy dance whenever I would find a requested publication in its entirety through this very accommodating publisher known as Springer, and I would get ready to download the article as a pdf, and… what? Wait, I have to pay to access this article? Ah, there’s the rub! After a few times of coming up against this Goliath, I realized there was no slingshot which could bring it to its knees and allow me free access. This valuable research and information were in a chokehold by the publishers.

Campbell notes that more than 80% of new research and scholarly articles are locked behind paywall. Institutions pay $5,000 per research paper via subscriptions,* with publishers reaping the benefits with profit margins at 30-40%! For example, the real cost of publishing an article in a traditional, subscription-based scholarly journal is around $1,600; articles in hybrid journals can cost as much as $2,900 to publish. It is no surprise then that the global revenue of subscription-based scholarly journals tops at a mind-blowing $10 billion. To bring down the Goliath, Campbell makes a bold assertion: “It is only by removing our financial support of the paywall system that we will finally achieve open access on a large scale.”

Enter OA2020 and its guiding principles of supporting new and improved forms of OA publishing. OA2020 aims “to transform a majority of today’s scholarly journals from subscription to OA publishing in accordance with community-specific publication preferences.” This approach considers the current subscription model as unsustainable for most colleges, universities, and other institutions. Through a global alliance, OA2020 is committed to quickening the transition of today’s scholarly journals to open access.

OpenAccess

Associate Professor Rich Schneider critiques the needs and wants of researchers when it comes to publishing their scholarly articles. Researchers love their journals and want to publish in their favorites. Unfortunately, most researchers and professors are not aware of the astronomical cost of subscription-based scholarly journals. They normally have no bias as to who the publisher is unless they are embarrassed to be associated with a particular publisher. Schneider reiterates that most researches are connected to their journals, and not to their publishers. Researchers desire their work to be readily available, to be widely read, and to be highly cited. Having the rights to re-use and share their work is also something researchers want. In fact, it frustrates them to have restrictions imposed on them by publishers who demand copyright transfer agreements or require permission (and sometimes even payment) for the researchers to re-use and share their own work! Maintaining existing workflows is also expected by researchers. They do not want to change the way they submit their manuscripts unless it is easier and quicker. Additionally, researchers generally do not want to change the peer review process, unless it is more fair and consistent. Schneider also states that researchers want to access all the content in existing journals and have that content readily available. Lastly, researchers want to make sure there are no publication barriers for anyone, and consideration must be maintained to ensure that an existing economic barrier is not simply being replaced by another.

From a researcher’s perspective, it is a no-brainer that OA2020 has the support of the research community. OA2020 maintains the cannon of existing journals, which Schneider points out may be a problem with libraries and some researcher communities. It can be viewed skeptically as “creating another system which perpetuates the dominance of certain publishers,” Schneider warns, but he reminds us again of the connection and allegiance between researchers and their journals, regardless of the publisher. Open access is the default state, increasing visibility, and shareability. OA2020 supports the rights of authors, researchers, readers, and taxpayers. It enables existing processes and workflow to remain intact and promotes a global transition from journal subscriptions. One of the biggest advantages of OA2020 is that it allows subscription savings (up to $5 billion) to support publication costs. To iterate Campbell’s point, the publication of subscription-based journals generates a revenue of $8-10 billion a year. However, it costs about $5 billion per year to publish two and half million scholarly and research articles. Schneider asks us, “Could we reinvest this?”

WE COLLABORATE TO TRANSFORM THE CURRENT PUBLISHING SYSTEM, REPLACING THE SUBSCRIPTION BUSINESS MODEL WITH NEW MODELS THAT ENSURE THAT OUTPUTS ARE OPEN AND RE-USABLE AND THAT THE COSTS BEHIND THEIR DISSEMINATION ARE TRANSPARENT AND ECONOMICALLY SUSTAINABLE.” ~ OA2020

So why should libraries get involved with OA2020? Curtis Brundy, Associate University Librarian with Iowa State University, offers three motivating factors as to why OA2020 should be supported by libraries. First, there is this growing sense that the subscription model is both financially unsustainable and doing little to advance open access. According to Diane Bruxvoort, the Dean of Libraries at the University of North Texas, the cost of subscriptions to journals increases by an average of 6% per year. “Libraries can no longer afford to continue absorbing the cost of subscribing to so many subscription-based journals,” she notes. Secondly, open access is the right thing to do. OA2020 offers libraries a viable path towards increasing open access. Donald Barclay, Deputy University Librarian with University of California, Merced remarks, “Open access to scholarly information is good for scholars, good for the average person, and good for human progress.” Thirdly, OA2020 is proving to be powerful and successful in uniting libraries for the purpose of collective action in trying to accomplish this transformation. Universities, institutes, and organizations all across the globe are uniting to express interest in OA2020.

WE NEED TO DISCONTINUE THE SUBSCRIPTION SYSTEM AND FIND NEW WAYS TO FINANCE THE PUBLISHING SERVICES THAT ARE WANTED AND NEEDED IN THE 21ST CENTURY.” ~ COLLEEN CAMPBELL, 0A2020 PARTNER DEVELOPMENT

How can you and your library get involved with OA2020? Are any of you currently involved in implementing open access in your libraries? Visit https://oa2020.org for more information. You may access the slides and the recording of the webinar here.

*Schimmer, R., Geschuhn, K. K., & Vogler, A. (2015). Disrupting the subscription journals’ business model for the necessary large-scale transformation to open access. doi: 10.17617/1.3.

Thinking About Deficit Thinking and First-Year Seminar

June 28, 2018

tags: deficit thinking, First-year students

by smartin592

I was able to attend the LOEX Conference in Houston in May and I saw a lot of great presentations. The one that has stayed with me was Eamon Tewell’s lecture, “The Problem with Grit: Dismantling Deficit Models in Information Literacy Instruction”. You can view the slides & handouts from his presentation here.

After listening to the talk, my interpretation of deficit thinking is the idea that a student is lacking something and if they just try hard enough they can overcome that deficit. We see this type of thinking in the library when we assume that students are empty vessels just waiting for us to fill them up with the skills they need to succeed. Eamon gave the example of one of the traditional one-shot requests for database demonstrations as an example of deficit thinking. In this situation we think that when the session goes well it’s because we were great but when it doesn’t it’s because the students weren’t prepared enough.

Using my new understanding of deficit thinking I started to review how our library has interacted with First Year Seminar (FYS) in the three years that I’ve worked there. The first two years we definitely approached these interactions with a deficit mindset, assuming that students were empty vessels and we could tell them everything they needed in a 90 minute session. We knew these sessions were not resonating with students so last year we created a new session on source identification & evaluation. We showed two short videos and gave a mini-lecture but the majority of class time was spent on a source evaluation activity. We gave groups of students different types of sources and asked them to sort them into one of three categories using a provided set of criteria. Each group then shared their decision with the class. We felt like this activity worked much better for the students than our previous attempts and looking at it through my lens of deficit thinking I think it had something to do with the fact that we allowed students to use skills they already had. I can also see how we could have eliminated even more of our deficit thinking if we had not given them criteria for evaluation but let the students show us the criteria they use for source evaluation.

In addition to Eamon’s talk at LOEX another presentation that has influenced my approach to FYS is a Credo webinar I watched in the fall, “Predictable Misunderstandings in Information Literacy: Research Findings”, by Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe. In this webinar, Lisa presents the results of a survey of academic librarians she completed asking them to identify first-year students’ misconceptions about research. She identified 11 misconceptions about research that students bring with them to college. These misconceptions reinforce that students are not empty vessels, they are come to college with ideas and strategies for research that have been successful for them to this point. Thinking about how to identify and overcome these misconceptions in our first-year students has been great food for thought.

Thinking about deficit thinking and predictable misunderstandings and the way that FYS is structured at our school made the librarians realize that there isn’t a way to create a one-size-fits-all session that we can deploy in each FYS section. So this year we decided to share Lisa’s list of misconceptions with the FYS faculty to get them thinking about areas where we can team up with them to try to help our students be more successful. I’m looking forward to seeing how this approach works in the fall. Have any of you tried something like this or reflected on your teaching practices through the lens of deficit thinking? If so I’d love to hear about it.

C&CS Transparency in the Tenure Process Available

June 23, 2018

by Erin B.

Greetings from ALA!

We did want to make sure that everyone knows: Heidi, Rachel and Elizabeth did an awesome job Thursday on afternoon, for their Transparency in the Tenure Process session. While focused on some of the issues that archivists specifically face, many others may want to watch it to get an understanding of the different types of tenure processes for librarians across institutions.

Kudos to both Amy Snyder for moderating and Sara Pike for doing our live closed captioning.

Video of the session for those not able to attend is available via this YouTube link.

Their slides are available here: link to slides

Please feel free to contact the C&CS team at this link if you have a proposal for a session.

C&CS Presents: The Feminist Reference Desk, July 9th at 1pm

June 19, 2018

by Erin B.

C&CS Presents

The Feminist Reference Desk: A Discussion on the “Mommy Librarian”

and Neutral Library Spaces

with Maura Seale, Celia Emmelhainz, Erin Pappas, and Nina Clements

July 9, 2018: 1 pm Eastern (10 am Pacific)

~Register here for the Zoom link!~

The recent book, The Feminist Reference Desk, has brought together several pieces of librarian and feminist theory including intersections of emotional labor and reference transactions, the feminist ethic of care, what neutrality means in our current library spaces, intersectionality at the reference desk, feminist disability studies and the reference desk, and other aspects of feminist pedagogy.

Celia, Erin, and Maura will provide a brief overview of their chapter, “Behavioral Expectations for the Mommy Librarian: The Successful Reference Transaction as Emotional Labor.” In it, they argue that RUSA’s Guidelines for Behavioral Performance of Reference and Information Service Providers rely on and reproduce expectations for gendered emotional labor in reference work, while undermining professional authority. They further challenge the idea that, on the librarian side, reference transactions occur in neutral sites divorced from social contexts. They will then open it up to a broader discussion about emotional labor in libraries, including how it is/is not valued and assessed.

Nina will also provide a brief overview of her chapter, ““Nothing More than a Gear in your Car:” Neutrality and Feminist Reference in the Academic Library.” Like the chapter above, she challenges the idea that the library, specifically the academic library, is a neutral space. Instead, it is a politicized space. The thrust of the chapter challenges that the notion of neutrality is a means of reproducing the dominant ideologies of a group, such as patriarchy. Hopefully, this overview will lead to an interesting discussion of the notion of neutrality in our society.

Maura Seale is History Librarian at the University of Michigan and was previously a Collections, Research, and Instruction Librarian at Georgetown University. She edited, with Karen P. Nicholson, The Politics of Theory and the Practice of Critical Librarianship, which was published by Library Juice Press in March 2018. She has also written about critical library pedagogy, race and gender in librarianship, and the political economy of libraries. She welcomes comments @mauraseale on Twitter.

Celia Emmelhainz is the Anthropology and Qualitative Research Librarian at the University of California, Berkeley. She has led workshops internationally on ethnographic assessment in libraries, and publishes on critical librarianship and on qualitative research studies in academic libraries. Comments welcome @celiemme on Twitter.

Erin Pappas is Research Librarian for the Humanities at the University of Virginia. She has presented and written on international digital libraries and DH projects, early-career mentoring, and occasionally conducts improv workshops for librarians, with Kate Dohe. You can find her on Twitter @erin_pappas, but usually only during conferences.

Nina Clements is Librarian & Information Literacy Coordinator at California State University Channel Islands. She is interested in information literacy as well as the intersection of the arts and librarianship. You can find her on Twitter @biblioscribbler.

Social Capital

June 14, 2018

by Maureen Bentz

While it’s great to highlight library services and collections, it is called “social” media for a reason. At Bishop Library we’ve found that audiences want to learn and relate to people in the library. Sure you may have spent hours making the perfect Canva ad highlighting a library event, but you will most likely get far more feedback spotlighting people. Not all staff are up for this, but most are willing to participate and enjoy the attention. We’ve tried to highlight staff with short biographies, interests and fun facts.

The best part this is often an easy thing to do ahead of time and with a small staff this is crucial. We use the social media management platform Hootsuite to schedule out as many posts as possible.

Highlighting staff members during national or college-wide events draws attention from alumni and current members of the college community. Your post or tweet may also be shared by the college and wider audience. Staff member Becky Chanas’ unique shirt (in the Instagram post seen here) on election day was a hit on Instagram.

If you have student staff members this is a perfect way to connect to your student workers’ social capital. We created a series of posts spotlighting student workers. The example below of student worker Tyler Miller was scheduled to be posted on the opening night of the college theatre group’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Not only did this create more engagement and comments than a typical post it also gained us some new followers.

Also don’t underestimate the power of your alumni. Working off the momentum established with student worker profiles, we reached out to former library student workers for a “Where Are They Now?” posts. The majority of former student workers reached out to responded within a few days with a photo and short update on their lives, leaving just editing and scheduling for me to do. I worked hard to tag all their respective departments and former student activities in the posts. Former student worker Leo Kyte, seen here with his wife Cornin (also an LVC grad), created the most buzz we’ve seen from this series of posts.

So when in doubt on what to post, leverage the appropriate social capital (including your best friend’s sister’s boyfriend’s brother’s girlfriend) and reap the rewards.

Photo credits in order of appearance.

Lebanon Valley College Archives. “Library Staff.” Quittapahilla Yearbook, Internet Archive, 1969, https://bit.ly/2Ll3tFj.
Bentz, Maureen. “Library Staff Catching Up and Keeping Cool.” Facebook, 2017, https://bit.ly/2JpoxgD .
Bentz, Maureen. “Meet our Library technician, Becky.” Instagram, 2016, https://bit.ly/2kLChV7.
Miller, Tyler. “Meet One of Our Student Workers, Tyler Miller.” Facebook, 2017, https://bit.ly/2sv0XWi.
Kyte, Leo. “Where Are They Now?? After Graduation Business Major Leo Kyte ’13 Set-out with His Girlfriend, Corinn Shute ’13, to Tackle Washington, D.C.” Facebook, 2018, https://bit.ly/2LlrwUD.