What's in a Name?

Abstract

Many archivists believe that outreach is an important part of their job. However, how do archivists define the term outreach? How does outreach compare to basic services? What types of outreach programs are being done? This article reports the results of a survey that asked college and university archivists to answer these and similar questions. The author describes the respondents' answers, compares their opinions about outreach and basic services, and reports the types of outreach programs that are done. The article concludes with a new and more inclusive definition of outreach that is based on the respondents' answers.     

Are you in h?

A new method of assessment of scientific papers, scientists, and scientific institutions was defined. The significance of a paper was assessed by the definition of the largest (the most prestigious) set, including that paper in its h-core. The sets of papers were defined by affiliation (country, city, university, department) or by subject (branches and sub-branches of science, journal). The inclusion of a paper in the h-core of certain set(s) was used as an indicator of the significance of that paper, and of the scientific output of its author(s), of their scientific institution(s), etc. An analogous procedure was used to assess the contribution of an individual to the scientific output of his/her scientific institution, branch of science, etc.     

What's in a Name?

These words critique the ongoing tendency to create false dichotomies between different approaches in media studies. Delivered as part of a panel on the future of media studies at the 2013 Society for Cinema and Media Studies, I offer a definition of critique that all critical media scholars should share.     

Online scholarly publishing in China: Who? What? How?

This overview describes the general situation of online scholarly publishing in China from both the supply and demand points of view. Based on desk research, online survey, and face‐to‐face interviews, we identify scholars' perceptions as well as expectations of the current online publishing system. We offer some personal recommendations for change. We then provide a list of business models for stakeholders.     

Republication of conference papers in journals?

Conference proceedings are one of the most important forms of communication for computer scientists. This study investigated the policies of a large number of computer science journals with regard to the republication of papers which had already appeared in conference proceedings. Nearly one‐quarter of journal editors would not republish such papers other than in special circumstances (such as a special conference issue), and almost all of the remainder would do so only after substantial updating and expansion of the original paper. Many specified the amount of content that should be new: 30% was the proportion most frequently mentioned. Thus, many sections of text may be identical to the original paper. However, some journal editors do not appear to consider this self‐plagiarism provided the original publication is properly cited. Nevertheless, such (re)publication is likely to lead to high similarity scores in CrossCheck; in this field, therefore, journal editors need to exercise particular discretion when evaluating CrossCheck results.     

What is in a name? Credit assignment practices in different disciplines

The paper reviews the literature on disciplinary credit assignment practices, and presents the results of a longitudinal study of credit assignment practices in the fields of economics, high energy physics, and information science. The practice of alphabetization of authorship is demonstrated to vary significantly between the fields. A slight increase is found to have taken place in economics during the last 30 years (1978–2007). A substantial decrease is found to have taken place in information science during the same period. High energy physics is found to be characterised by a high and stable share of alphabetized multi-authorships during the investigated period (1990–2007). It is important to be aware of such disciplinary differences when conducting bibliometric analyses.     

Missing in action? Content of records management metadata in real life

During the last 15 years, records managers and archivists have focused on defining requirements for functionality and metadata of electronic records management systems. So far little is known about metadata that are actually created in these systems. This study examines metadata in records of a Finnish government agency. The metadata comply with the national SÄHKE records management metadata specification. The main findings are that a substantial number of metadata elements in SÄHKE remained unused. Generated metadata were largely about event history. Optional metadata elements were used rarely. The metadata show clear patterns, which may suggest systematic recordkeeping processes and possibly minimal human intervention in metadata creation.     

Writing academic papers: lost in translation?

The process of writing for publication is a challenging one. It moves us from the spoken and written word into a realm that requires us to provide supporting evidence to develop an argument in a logical and progressive way. In English language journals, as elsewhere, the quality of the written word is a determining factor in the likelihood of a paper being accepted for publication. By reading past issues of a targeted journal, drawing on the expertise of colleagues and responding positively to feedback, it is possible to significantly enhance your prospects of publication.     

Is There a Core Literature in Museology?

Abstract While critics have often asserted that museology is underdeveloped as a discipline and lacks a “core literature,” no empirical evidence has been introduced to support this claim. A citation analysis of journal articles and books published over the past several years shows clear evidence that a core literature is in fact evolving in the field. Highly‐productive and influential authors are easily identifiable, as are seminal works that have received large numbers of citations by other authors. The majority of those highly‐cited works belong to the discipline of museology itself, and sizable numbers of influential publications cluster around key unifying themes.     

Readability: A Factor in Student Research?

Readability assessments of works cited in freshmen informative and argumentative speeches were performed with the Flesch-Kincaid Reading Grade Level and Flesch Reading Ease assessment tools available in Microsoft Word. Students selected their sources independently, and their sources were grouped as journals, magazines and newspapers, and websites, which were then subdivided by domain type. The wide range of readability scores in sources cited in freshman speeches raises questions related to college freshmen's reading abilities and how that affects student's selection of sources when performing research for class assignments.     

Why do authors publish in predatory journals?

This study examines the reasons why authors publish in ‘predatory’ OA journals. In total, 50 journals were randomly selected from Beall's list of ‘predatory’ journals. Different methods, including WHOIS tracking, were utilized to query basic information about the selected journals, including location and registrant. Then, 300 articles were randomly selected from within selected journals in various scientific fields. Authors of the selected articles were contacted and sent survey questions to complete. A grounded theory qualitative methods approach was used for data collection and analysis. The results demonstrated that most of these journals were located in the developing world, usually Asia or Africa, even when they claimed they were in the USA or UK. Furthermore, four themes emerged after authors’ survey responses were coded, categorized, and sub‐categorized. The themes were: social identity threat, unawareness, high pressure, and lack of research proficiency. Scholars in the developing world felt that reputable Western journals might be prejudiced against them and sometimes felt more comfortable publishing in journals from the developing world. Other scholars were unaware of the reputation of the journals in which they published and would not have selected them had they known. However, some scholars said they would still have published in the same journals if their institution recognised them. The pressure to ‘publish or perish’ was another factor influencing many scholars’ decisions to publish in these fast‐turnaround journals. In some cases, researchers did not have adequate guidance and felt they lacked the knowledge of research to submit to a more reputable journal. More needs to be done by institutions and reputable journals to make researchers aware of the problem of ‘predatory’ journals.     

Where Are Serials in Your Organization Chart?

No abstract available for this article.     

Quality in information services: Do users and librarians differ in their expectations?

This article describes part of a project designed to develop a user-based approach to measuring the quality of an information service, that is, the extent to which the service provided by the library meets or exceeds the users' expectations for an excellent or superior service on a consistent basis. The main question investigated is whether there are differences in the expectations that academics hold of information services provided by academic libraries, and librarians' perceptions of these expectations. The results show that academics and librarians have similar expectations but there are differences in the emphasis each group places on aspects of service. Librarians, for example, underestimate the importance to academics of the responsiveness of a service and overestimate the importance of the characteristics of the staff who provide the service. Practical applications of the findings are discussed and theoretical implications explored.