Category Archives: oa.lis

A Case for Open Peer Review Podcasting in Academic Librarianship

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Abstract:  Models of open peer review are being explored in multiple disciplines as academia seeks a more feminist, care-based approach to scholarship. One model of open peer review that aligns well with the work of information professionals, particularly those with information literacy instruction duties, is an open peer review podcast. This type of podcast, recorded before a manuscript is submitted for publication, brings an informal peer review process into the open as a host facilitates critical discussion of a research output between the researcher and a reviewer. This approach fosters a supportive community with shared values while utilizing the affordances of podcasting to make invisible labor visible and bring whole personhood into scholarship and scholarly communication. The author provides a case study of implementing this model with the creation of The LibParlor Podcast.

UKSG 2023: scholarly communication for the information community | Emerald Insight

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Abstract:  Purpose

It reports new research and innovative ideas and technology presented at the UKSG Conference held in Glasgow, Scotland. The report is to disseminate outcomes from the conference plenaries, lightning talks, breakout sessions and exhibitions. Topics like open access, global equity, artificial intelligence and scholarly communication, research archiving and preservation among others are described as presented during the conference.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper uses the viewpoint method in reporting a United Kingdom Serials Group (UKSG) experience of a conference held in April, 2023 in Glasgow, Scotland.

Findings

The scholarly community debated much that is trending on various topics and concluded that a lot needs to be done in collaborations, open access, research into new ways of dealing with contemporary issues and new technologies.

Originality/value

The paper presents the issues discussed at the UKSG Conference 2023 have not been presented before. Current trends are brought to the fore.

Can open access increase LIS research’s policy impact? Using regression analysis and causal inference | SpringerLink

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Abstract:  The relationship between open access and academic impact (usually measured as citations received from academic publications) has been extensively studied but remains a very controversial topic. However, the effect of open access on policy impact (measured as citations received from policy documents) is still unknown. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of open access on the policy impact, which might initiate a new controversial topic. Research articles in the field of library and information science (LIS) were selected as the data sample (n?=?48,884). Negative binomial regression models were used to examine the dataset. Furthermore, propensity score matching (PSM) analysis, a causal inference approach, was used to estimate the effect of open access on the policy impact based on a selected LIS journal (Scientometrics, n?=?4019) that received the most policy citations among the LIS journals. Linear regression models, logit regression models, four other matching methods, open access status provided by different databases, and different sizes of data samples were used to check the robustness of the main results. This study revealed that open access had significant and positive effects on the policy impact.

 

OpenCon Librarian Community Call: May 09, 2023 | Do new librarians feel prepared for scholarly communication positions?

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“Scholarly communication and adjacent positions are now standard in most academic institutions, but do new librarians feel prepared? Join us in May to discuss what training you received (or what you wish you’d received), where you learn about new developments, and what you would tell people who are starting in these positions. We will use Etherpad with a moderator to have an engaging and anonymous conversation regarding MLIS education and scholarly communication. Also, as part of May’s call, we will begin conversations around this year’s Open Access Week theme, Community over Commercialization…”

Towards a better understanding of Facebook Altmetrics in LIS field: assessing the characteristics of involved paper, user and post | SpringerLink

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Abstract:  Facebook mentions to scholarly papers have provided a novel way for reflecting and measuring the process of informal scientific communication. To uncover the underlying mechanism of Facebook Altmetrics, it is essential to investigate characteristics of its contextual data. Take library and information science papers for empirical study, three categories of contextual data were gathered, namely data of mentioned LIS papers, data of Facebook users and data of Facebook post. Hybrid methods including statistical analysis, content analysis and visualization analysis were adopted to analyze the data. Results show that: (1) Positive open access status and active Facebook account would help get scholarly paper mentioned but would not boost the number of Facebook mentions. Number of citations, number of collaborative institutions, and number of collaborative countries showed a significantly positive correlation with the number of Facebook mentions. Health information management was identified to be the most mentioned research topic while bibliometrics and scientific evaluation has received on average the highest number of Facebook mentions. (2) Scientific Facebook users that mention LIS papers were widely scattered geographically but dominated by USA, Spain, Germany, Brazil and Australia. Institutional users (89%) and academic users (84%) are prevailing, especially universities (14%), research institutes (12%), libraries (11%), academic associations (9%) and commercial organizations (8%). (3) Most scientific Facebook posts were relatively short, while the language distribution was less skewed than that of scientific tweets. The post content is mostly a combination of text, links, and pictures and with neutral sentiment. Different types of users have demonstrated significantly different style of content and concerned topics. These findings indicate that Facebook mentions to LIS papers mainly reflect the institutional level advocacy and attention, with low level of engagement, and could be influenced by several features including collaborative patterns and research topics.

 

Scholarly communication: a concept analysis | Emerald Insight

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Abstract:  Purpose

“Scholarly Communication” is a frequent topic of both the professional and research literature of Library and Information Science (LIS). Despite efforts by individuals (e.g. Borgman, 1989) and organizations such as the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) to define the term, multiple understandings of it remain. Discussions of scholarly communication infrequently offer a definition or explanation of its parameters, making it difficult for readers to form a comprehensive understanding of scholarly communication and associated phenomena.

Design/methodology/approach

This project uses the evolutionary concept analysis (ECA) method developed by nursing scholar, Beth L. Rodgers, to explore “Scholarly Communication” as employed in the literature of LIS. As the purpose of ECA is not to arrive at “the” definition of a term but rather exploring its utilization within a specific context, it is an ideal approach to expand our understanding of SC as used in LIS research.

Findings

“Scholarly Communication” as employed in the LIS literature does not refer to a single phenomenon or idea, but rather is a concept with several dimensions and sub-dimensions with distinct, but overlapping, significance.

Research limitations/implications

The concept analysis (CA) method calls for review of a named concept, i.e. verbatim. Therefore, the items included in the data set must include the phrase “scholarly communication”. Items using alternate terminology were excluded from analysis.

Practical implications

The model of scholarly communication presented in this paper provides language to operationalize the concept.

Originality/value

LIS lacks a nuanced understanding of “scholarly communication” as used in the LIS literature. This paper offers a model to further the field’s collective understanding of the term and support operationalization for future research projects.

A Genealogy of Open

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The term open has become a familiar part of library and education practice and discourse, with open source software being a common referent. However, the conditions surrounding the emergence of the open source movement are not well understood within librarianship. After identifying capitalism and neoliberalism as structures that shape library and open practice, this article contextualizes the term open by delineating the discursive struggle within the free software movement that led to the emergence of the open source movement. An understanding of the genealogy of open can lend clarity to many of the contradictions that have been grappled with in the literature, such as what open means, whether it supports social justice aims, and its relation to neoliberal and capitalist structures. The article concludes by inquiring into how librarianship and open can reframe practices that are typically oriented toward mitigation and survival to encompass an orientation toward life and flourishing. 

A Genealogy of Open

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The term open has become a familiar part of library and education practice and discourse, with open source software being a common referent. However, the conditions surrounding the emergence of the open source movement are not well understood within librarianship. After identifying capitalism and neoliberalism as structures that shape library and open practice, this article contextualizes the term open by delineating the discursive struggle within the free software movement that led to the emergence of the open source movement. An understanding of the genealogy of open can lend clarity to many of the contradictions that have been grappled with in the literature, such as what open means, whether it supports social justice aims, and its relation to neoliberal and capitalist structures. The article concludes by inquiring into how librarianship and open can reframe practices that are typically oriented toward mitigation and survival to encompass an orientation toward life and flourishing. 

A Genealogy of Open

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The term open has become a familiar part of library and education practice and discourse, with open source software being a common referent. However, the conditions surrounding the emergence of the open source movement are not well understood within librarianship. After identifying capitalism and neoliberalism as structures that shape library and open practice, this article contextualizes the term open by delineating the discursive struggle within the free software movement that led to the emergence of the open source movement. An understanding of the genealogy of open can lend clarity to many of the contradictions that have been grappled with in the literature, such as what open means, whether it supports social justice aims, and its relation to neoliberal and capitalist structures. The article concludes by inquiring into how librarianship and open can reframe practices that are typically oriented toward mitigation and survival to encompass an orientation toward life and flourishing. 

A Genealogy of Open

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The term open has become a familiar part of library and education practice and discourse, with open source software being a common referent. However, the conditions surrounding the emergence of the open source movement are not well understood within librarianship. After identifying capitalism and neoliberalism as structures that shape library and open practice, this article contextualizes the term open by delineating the discursive struggle within the free software movement that led to the emergence of the open source movement. An understanding of the genealogy of open can lend clarity to many of the contradictions that have been grappled with in the literature, such as what open means, whether it supports social justice aims, and its relation to neoliberal and capitalist structures. The article concludes by inquiring into how librarianship and open can reframe practices that are typically oriented toward mitigation and survival to encompass an orientation toward life and flourishing. 

Characteristics of scholarly journals published in non?English?speaking countries: An analysis of Library and Information Science SCOPUS journals – Yoon – 2023 – Learned Publishing – Wiley Online Library

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Abstract:  Although regional journals publish high-quality research in diverse languages, research published in non-English-speaking countries (NESC) tends to have lower international visibility. By outlining the characteristics of SCOPUS journals published in NESC, this study aimed to inform regional scholarly communities interested in internationalizing their journals. A list of 294 SCOPUS journals in the Library and Information Science (LIS) field was extracted from the SCOPUS database; 39.12% of SCOPUS LIS journals (115 journals) were published in NESC. After excluding journals published in English-speaking countries as well as journals published by international commercial publishers, this study analysed the characteristics of 62 journals. Forty-eight (77.42%) of the 62 analysed journals were open access (OA) journals, and 37 (77.08%) of which were diamond OA journals. Although journals from NESC had relatively lower impact, journals that primarily used English (journal homepage, specified manuscript language) had higher impact than non-English journals. This article discusses the importance of supporting OA (including diamond) journals to ensure international access of NESC journals, the limitations of this study, including relying on the SCOPUS LIS journals and quantitative analysis, and an agenda for future research regarding the internationalization of regional journals.

 

New to the SCN: Publishing Values-based Scholarly Communication | OER + ScholComm

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This is the latest post in a series announcing resources created for the Scholarly Communication Notebook, or SCN. The SCN is a hub of open teaching and learning content on scholcomm topics that is both a complement to an open book-level introduction to scholarly communication librarianship and a disciplinary and course community for inclusively sharing models and practices. IMLS funded the SCN in 2019, permitting us to pay creators for their labor while building a solid initial collection. These works are the result of one of three calls for proposals (our first CFP was issued in fall 2020; the second in late spring ‘21, and the third in late fall 2021).

 

Influence of Social Networking Sites on Scholarly Communication: An Altmetrics Analysis of Selected LIS Journals

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Abstract:  Abstract. This study aims to examine the influence of social networking sites on scholarly papers published in Library and Information Science journals. Top 100 articles published in two renowned journals International Journal of Information Management and the Journal of Medical Library Association, that received high Altmetric Attention Score (AAS) have been taken for the study. The analysis found that LIS research is most often mentioned on Twitter, followed by news outlets and blogs. Student groups and librarians are among the most frequent readers of the publications. The Pearson correlation coefficient test revealed a very high and significant positive correlation between Scopus citation and Dimensions.ai citation, Mendeley readership and Scopus citation. However, AAS and Dimensions.ai citation is low correlation and statistically not significant. The findings indicate that journals need social media profiles to disseminate information among academia and society to increase online attention to LIS  research.

Keywords: Altmetrics, LIS research, online attention, dimensions, social media metrics.

Libraries Are Vital Community Spaces (And, They Need to Change) | Mellon Foundation

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The Radical Librarianship Institute and Community Press seeks to train librarians of the future to be agents of inclusion and change. In time for National Arts and Humanities Month, we interviewed its director, Robert Montoya.

Libraries are crucial places for knowledge and information access, and increasingly offer critical social and civic services like voter registration, citizenship and language classes, and more. Yet, many people are left out or overlooked—whether they live in a place without a local library or do not have their interests represented in the collections. Mellon awarded a $1.25 million grant to the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) for the Radical Librarianship Institute and Community Press to not just better meet these needs, but shift the idea of what a library—and a librarian—can be. 

The Institute is focused on reimagining a conventional librarian curriculum and forming a new certificate training program, which will be open to librarians from across the country. Also part of this initiative is a community press that puts the power of publishing and bookmaking in the hands of people who live in these libraries’ communities. The first iteration of the certificate training program is planned for August 2023.