Identifying Holdings Unique to Your Library's Collections Using WorldCat

ABSTRACT

Having a good understanding of the variety and concentration of rare holdings in our libraries is becoming more and more important, not only for preservation and access purposes, but also for collection management and marketing. This article details how WorldCat's standard search interface can be used to identify holdings unique to particular institutions, or to compare the holdings of one or more institutions based on the relative rarity or ubiquity of the materials in their collections.     

Weeding with Wisdom: Tuning Deselection of Print Monographs in Book-Reliant Disciplines

As university libraries transition to digital collections and new services, their book deselection projects often lead to the adoption of cross-discipline quantitative weeding criteria (such as age and low circulation) in the interest of speed and presumed fairness. Cross-discipline quantitative rubrics, however, can have unintended negative consequences when applied to disciplines such as history and literature that rely on older books with low circulation statistics. The authors argue for a discipline-differentiated approach to weeding academic library collections that can employ quantitative criteria for disciplines, such as in the sciences, that are more reliant on current materials and qualitative criteria for disciplines, such as in the humanities, whose scholars benefit from ready access to older and low-use books.     

Usability Evaluation of a Research Repository and Collaboration Web Site

This article reports results from an empirical usability evaluation of Human-Animal Bond Research Initiative Central as part of the effort to develop an open access research repository and collaboration platform for human-animal bond researchers. By repurposing and altering key features of the original HUBzero system, Human-Animal Bond Research Initiative Central hosts previously published materials from related disciplines and an extensive bibliography, in addition to traditional hub materials such as tools and datasets. Seven graduate students in the College of Veterinary Medicine at Purdue University participated in the usability evaluation. Tasks included exploring the system, finding an article in the repository, submitting an article to the repository, adding bibliographic information of an article to the repository, and using interaction features such as user groups. Participants also answered open questions regarding their overall experience and rated Human-Animal Bond Research Initiative Central's usability using the System Usability Scale. Response measures included task successfulness, navigational steps, task time, participant comments, and behavior notes recorded by the researcher. Results of the evaluation showed that the overall user experience of Human-Animal Bond Research Initiative Central was satisfactory but also indicated a number of usability issues. Participants had difficulty inputting metadata such as resource type and author information when submitting an article to the repository. There were also interface design issues regarding layout and consistency. It is expected that findings from this study and the evaluation methodology can be extended to the development and evaluation of similar research repository systems.     

An Information Access Model at a Distant Branch Library

Abstract

Academic branch libraries located at a distance from the parent institution often face unique challenges in meeting users' needs for scholarly information. This is especially true for distant branch libraries that do not have a specialized function or collection, but who often face the challenge of meeting users' needs for scholarly materials across a wide array of academic disciplines. This paper discusses the definition of academic branch libraries and the information access plan developed for the Regents Center Library at the University of Kansas Edwards Campus, located some 40 miles from the main parent institution, the University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas. In addition, a discussion of the mission, academic programs, and special user characteristics of the Edwards Campus that impacted the development of the information access plan is included. Finally, the factors that affected and will continue to affect the plan, along with methods for managing the implementation of the plan, are provided.     

The peer-review process

The recent literature about peer review of scholarly articles is reviewed, with particular emphasis on the cost of the peer-review process. Possible impacts of electronic scholarly publishing upon peer reviewing are discussed. Opinion among academics in their roles as authors, editors and referees seems likely to insist upon preservation of a pre-publication refereeing system in most disciplines. As the administration of any such system seems to have a cost of about $400 per published article, any scholarly publishing system will need to locate financial support to at least that extent, and a system of lump-sum payment by the authors' funders is best placed to cover this cost while providing universal free access to scholarly material.     

高校学科发展分析评价实证研究——以河南省3所大学为例

[目的/意义]以创新驱动战略为动力,提出发展优势学科,挖掘潜力学科的绩效评价方法和流程。[方法/过程]采用定标比超方法确定优势和潜力学科的定标标准,并利用ESI和SCIE数据库对河南省3所高校的优势学科和潜力学科发展趋势进行实证分析。[结果/结论]纵向对比得出优势学科的排名、相对位置及发展趋势;横向对比找出与重点高校的差距;与全球前1%学科基准线对比,确定潜力学科的相对位置。     

期刊PR8指数:一个新的跨学科期刊评价指标及其实证研究

[目的/意义] 基于论文被引频次8个区段百分位数排序（percentile rank 8,PR8）赋分,尝试构建新的跨学科期刊评价指标：期刊PR8指数（journal index for PR8,JIPR8）,并检验JIPR8的跨学科期刊评价效果。[方法/过程] 选择JCR中8个学科301种期刊作为研究对象,分别计算每种期刊的JIPR8,并与其他几个跨学科期刊评价指标进行比较,检验JIPR8跨学科期刊评价的敏感度和稳定性,以及与其他跨学科期刊评价指标的相关性。[结果/结论] 在选择的所有指标中,8个学科301种期刊JIPR8的变异程度最低,说明其用于跨学科期刊评价的稳定性最好;不同分区期刊（Q1、Q2、Q3和Q4） JIPR8的组间差异性较为明显,仅次于期刊影响因子百分位（journal impact factor pencentile,JIFP）,表明其对优秀和一般期刊的区分度较好。认为JIPR8是一个非常理想的跨学科期刊评价指标。     

Remember Me? Content Development in a User-Centered Services Library

As a response to the University of Kansas' (KU) strategic planning process and the need to identify budgetary efficiencies, the KU Libraries created a strategic plan and underwent a structural reorganization. In the new structure, the libraries went from thirty librarians doing collection development to seven selecting library materials for the core collection. The new, smaller, more agile department is responsible for all tasks related to collection development as the library moves from being a collection-centered institution to being user-centered. The new organization shifts the collection development paradigm from one based on academic disciplines to one that embraces a holistic view.     

The competitive advantage of nations: An application to academia

Within the field of bibliometrics, there is sustained interest in how nations “compete” in terms of academic disciplines, and what determinants explain why countries may have a specific advantage in one discipline over another. However, this literature has not, to date, presented a comprehensive structured model that could be used in the interpretation of a country's research profile and academic output. In this paper, we use frameworks from international business and economics to present such a model.Our study makes four major contributions. First, we include a very wide range of countries and disciplines, explicitly including the Social Sciences, which unfortunately are excluded in most bibliometrics studies. Second, we apply theories of revealed comparative advantage and the competitive advantage of nations to academic disciplines. Third, we cluster our 34 countries into five different groups that have distinct combinations of revealed comparative advantage in five major disciplines. Finally, based on our empirical work and prior literature, we present an academic diamond that details factors likely to explain a country's research profile and competitiveness in certain disciplines.     

Self‐archiving practice and the influence of publisher policies in the social sciences

Authors in different disciplines exhibit very different behaviours on the so‐called ‘green’ road to open access, i.e. self‐archiving. This study looks at the self‐archiving behaviour of authors publishing in leading journals in six social science disciplines. It tests the hypothesis that authors are self‐archiving according to the norms of their respective disciplines rather than following self‐archiving policies of publishers, and that, as a result, they are self‐archiving significant numbers of publisher PDF versions. It finds significant levels of self‐archiving, as well as significant self‐archiving of the publisher PDF version, in all the disciplines investigated. Publishers' self‐archiving policies have no influence on author self‐archiving practice.     

Comics and the Modern Library Catalog: New Rules for Breaking the Rules

Scholarly and curricular uses of comics extend to many disciplines in higher education, resulting in increased demand for institutional access to such materials. Despite nearly twenty years of justification in the literature for inclusion of such materials in libraries, there are not widely adopted conventions or models for engaging in the business of a comics collection. At San Diego State University, this presented an opportunity to pioneer new modes of access, from cataloging and organization to storage and retrieval. This article explores the process of making a collection of floppy comics accessible alongside a theoretical discussion of cataloging shortcomings and opportunities.     

Patron Attitudes Toward Computerized and Print Resources

Summary

Many patrons in an academic setting have preconceived attitudes regarding the use of particular formats of indexes and other materials. These attitudes can frequently interfere with a patron's more successful retrieval of needed resources because of the use of their preferred format rather than the use of the best means of access for their information need. The impact of these preconceived views is explored in terms of providing reference service in the present day.     

Just-In-Time: A Case Study of Buying Instead of Borrowing at the University of North Texas Libraries, 2014–2017

There is a trend among academic libraries to increase collaboration between interlibrary loan and collection development to improve patron access to materials and build library collections. Instead of borrowing returnable materials, interlibrary loan may initiate purchases that will become part of the library's collection. This can mean anything from an organizational change combining interlibrary loan with the acquisitions unit or creating new workflows to facilitate purchasing. At the University of North Texas Libraries, the Interlibrary Loan office is a unit of the Access Services Department. Buying instead of borrowing for the ILL unit began with a Demand Driven Acquisitions (DDA) program and has expanded with the establishment of the University of North Texas Libraries' access-based collection development policy. Interlibrary Loan provides “Just-In-Time” (JIT) access to materials not available through regular interlibrary loan sources and adds relevant materials to the Libraries' collections.     

Mapping the literature of perfusion.

Perfusionists select and operate the equipment necessary for monitoring, supporting, or temporarily replacing the patient's circulatory or respiratory function. There are over 3,000 perfusionists working in U.S. hospitals, medical and perfusionist groups, and as independent contractors. The purpose of this study was to identify the core literature of perfusion and to determine which major databases provide the most thorough access to this literature. This paper is part of the Medical Library Association Nursing and Allied Health Resource Section's project to map the literature of the allied health professions. It uses a bibliometric methodology to identify core journals. A group of forty-three journals was determined to make up the core journal literature of perfusion. MEDLINE provided the best overall indexing coverage for these journals, but librarians and perfusionists will wish to supplement its use with the Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature in order to access the journals written primarily for perfusionists. The study results can guide purchasing and database searching decisions of collection development and reference librarians, encourage the database producer to increase coverage of titles that are unindexed or underindexed, and advise perfusionists of the best access to their core literature.     

基于利益相关者分析的开放获取研究

具有经济学、管理学、社会学、伦理学等学科背景的利益相关者理论,能为开放获取研究提供新的视角、方法和工具。开放获取事业的利益相关者是为其发展投入了劳动（主要是脑力劳动）、成果、资金、设备、设施等有价值的东西,或是利益受其影响的个人或群体。从“权力性”和“紧迫性”维度,开放获取事业的利益相关者可划分为四个层次。开放获取期刊和机构知识库的利益相关者各有不同的职能和利益关系。