I’m grateful to Roger Schonfeld at the Scholarly Kitchen for his synopsis of a study conducted by Ithaka S+R and the Harvard University Library about the organization of scholarly communication at ten major research university libraries. His typology is helping me find some clarity on something I’ve been struggling with lately: libraries as open access publishers. What’s troubling me is the how, not the what. Scholarly publishing in its current form is on an unsustainable path; it must change or … [Read more...]
Discovering Worldcat Discovery
October 7, 2015 By
As we enter the heart of the fall semester users of the E.H. Little Library’s resources may have noticed we changed our our catalog/discovery system over the summer. Where we previously used Worldcat Local as an access point we now use Worldcat Discovery a new system provided by the same vendor (OCLC). This same change is reflected in the search box on our library home page which now also points to Worldcat Discovery. So why change the interface that we have had … [Read more...]
In Which Seemingly Unrelated Things Come Together
May 13, 2015 By
Brian Mathews, the Ubiquitous Librarian at the Chronicle, recently blogged about his friend Tara and her role in “forensic bibliographic reconstruction” in interlibrary loan. A number of commenters were fascinated by this peek behind the ILL curtain. From the Davidson library, I offer another: That article you got on “interlibrary loan” may not have come from another library at all. Joe Gutekanst and Jason Radcliffe are finding 100-150 items a week on the open web. It’s happened to me; I … [Read more...]
Stored and Storied: An Ode to JSTOR
February 25, 2015 By
There was a time when shelves their limits neared, packed tight, and many tomes in dust to me appeared unused, neglected, contents spurned; why must each store what's seldom needed, just in case? It is not now a student seeks out print and copier; online- only option their only desire, PDF reprint. JSTOR, JSTOR, how do students love thee? We can surely count the ways, but librarians' love for JSTOR is perhaps stronger and not as easily quantified. Certainly, everyone, students … [Read more...]
In Common
January 14, 2015 By
In academia, we often focus on the unique or particular: a faculty member's area of research, a student's record of achievement, a program's national ranking, a journal's impact factor. Distinctions and differences drive intellectual debate and foster critical inquiry. This can sometimes seem like a sophisticated version of "one of these things is not like the other." At every institution, academic departments, admissions, and development offices celebrate differences, comparing and often … [Read more...]
