Raymond Pun, Sai Deng, and Guoying (Grace) Liu on the challenge of advocating for diversity, equity and inclusion within scholarly communications when your own institution isn’t “there” yet.
The post Guest Post: Pushing for Equity and Diversity in Scholarship through Open Access: Lessons Learned and Perspective from the Chinese American Librarians Association (CALA) appeared first on The Scholarly Kitchen.
With a lawsuit filed last week Pen America, Penguin Random House, authors, and parents began fighting book bans. Other publishers should help.
The post The Publishing Community Should More Actively Oppose Book Bans appeared first on The Scholarly Kitchen.
As co-host of the Scholarly Communication Podcast, I’ve spent the last six months speaking with university press publishers and small to mid-size commercial book publishers. Here’s what I’ve learned.
The post 10 Trends I Observed Interviewing 10 Publishing Executives About the Future of Academic Books appeared first on The Scholarly Kitchen.
A.J. Boston offers a route for managing closed access e-serials in a way that finds the best value for libraries, the most content for users, keeps publishers solvent, and experiments on behalf of equity.
The post Guest Post – Manifesto for a New Read Deal appeared first on The Scholarly Kitchen.
Today’s post looks at loosely coupled software and services that together could be used to create a modular library system. What are the merits, and flaws, of such an approach and what can libraries (and technology providers) do to remedy some of the less desired effects of such strategies?
The post Guest Post — Do Libraries Still Dream Unified Dreams? Part 2 appeared first on The Scholarly Kitchen.
Why is the unified dream of library software still so strong among the library community? In an ever more diverse library landscape, why do we still envision and talk about THE library system? And what are the alternatives?
The post Guest Post — Do Libraries Still Dream Unified Dreams? Part 1 appeared first on The Scholarly Kitchen.
Why say OERs when Open Educational Resources is already plural? A guest post from librarian Emma Wood on the confounding inconsistencies of language.
The post Guest Post — OER or OERs: Can There Can Be Only One (Acronym)? appeared first on The Scholarly Kitchen.
An interview with Laura Moulton, founder of Street Books, a mobile library which serves Portland’s houseless community. SSP annual meeting attendees are invited to bring paperback books to donate to Street Books.
The post Guest Post — Street Books: A Non-profit Mobile Library Serving the Houseless Residents of Portland appeared first on The Scholarly Kitchen.
An SNSI research project looks at the views of university Chief Information Security Officers toward network security, potential threats, data security, and the risks posed by Sci-Hub.
The post Guest Post — What is Keeping University Chief Information Security Officers Up at Night appeared first on The Scholarly Kitchen.
In this moment of success for open access advocacy, Roger C. Schonfeld proposes that the academic library not take responsibility for implementing open access mandates. The first of several scenarios we will consider.
The post Is the Library Responsible for Open Access Compliance? appeared first on The Scholarly Kitchen.
A Federal judge’s ruling offered a stern rebuke of the Internet Archive’s National Emergency Library and its controlled digital lending service, providing a significant victory for the four publishers that had filed suit.
The post Controlled Digital Lending Takes a Blow in Court appeared first on The Scholarly Kitchen.
Is the OA movement painting itself into a corner with concerns about new OA rules and regulations?
The post The Ivies (Plus) Have Concerns about the Nelson OSTP Memo appeared first on The Scholarly Kitchen.
In this interview, Lea Bollhalder, who is responsible for the social media channels of the ETH Library, gives us an insight into the work of the social media team.
Social media enable direct communication not only between the library and its customers, but also between the library’s customers themselves. This opens up a variety of perspectives. Libraries can use social media to increase their visibility, raise their profile and generate additional website traffic – just to name a few examples. Through social media, libraries can provide relevant, quality information to their target audiences and build relationships between the library, its customers and other stakeholders. The content complements a library’s existing marketing and communication channels.
The ETH Library is active on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. We have either deleted other channels or no longer actively operate them.
ETH Centrum©, working stations
At the time we chose the channels, we took our goals, target groups and capacities into account. We are constantly checking which channels are becoming more relevant for customers of the ETH Library and which are becoming less popular, and we compare whether our goals can be achieved on the respective channel. For example, we are currently keeping a close eye on current developments on Twitter and Mastodon and are in contact with the ETH Zurich Communications Department.
One of the communication goals of the ETH Library, which also guides our social media strategy, is to sharpen our profile. We want to achieve this on social media by identifying specific target groups for each channel and focusing specifically on them there. On our channels, we address the scientific community of ETH Zurich (students and researchers), the interested public as well as other libraries and their employees, depending on the objective. We have subdivided these target groups even more precisely, defined personas and consistently focus on them when creating social media content.
The topics are very broad. However, we always strive to provide relevant content for our target groups and continuously collect content ideas. For example, we share tips and tricks for studying and academic writing on Instagram and Twitter, industry news on LinkedIn and content related to our collections and archives preferably on Facebook. On social media, we promote our services, products and events, new blog articles and share curated content – but there should also be room for entertaining content. We regularly involve our followers and ask them about their wishes, e.g. regarding content that is useful and interesting for them.
We work with an editorial plan that includes social media as well as all other communication and marketing channels. This makes content planning much easier and we know exactly what is coming up and when. In addition, we maintain a close exchange with various departments of the ETH Library and are included when new communication and marketing activities are planned.
Furthermore, the social media team curates content and asks the specialists at the ETH Library for their opinion regarding the quality and target group relevance of the source found. If we receive subject-specific questions on social media, the respective specialists provide us with the answers.
In addition, we are planning to set up an internal network that will enable us to spontaneously get in touch with the ETH Library staff. This should enable our colleagues to share content inspirations, ideas and images even more effectively with the social media team. Furthermore, employees should help with content curation by sharing interesting news articles, blogs, social media posts, etc. that they have come across. The idea behind this network is not only to curate content more efficiently and to create it faster, but also to allow employees to help shape the ETH Library‘s presence in social media.
Video content generally achieves better results than photo posts – with a few exceptions. On Instagram, we’ve been focusing heavily on Stories since mid-2021, and we’ve also been creating more Instagram Reels for a few months now. However, there are always surprises as to why a certain post was particularly popular or, on the contrary, met with no interest at all. Basically, any format can achieve good results as long as it generates added value for the relevant target group – regardless of whether the post provides useful information or is simply entertaining.
Yes! In February 2022, the course “How to use the ETH Library in 8 steps for new staff and doctoral students, or what you need to prepare for a zombie apocalypse” took place, which – from our point of view – finally had a really snappy title that we obviously wanted to use for ourselves on social media. We promoted the course on the second day after the start of the war against the Ukraine. The illustration of the course content with zombie illustrations was rightly perceived by our followers as tasteless and inappropriate. We immediately deleted the Instagram Story and apologised. Of course, it was not intentional. This unfortunate incident occurred partly because the course content was prepared particularly early and the social media manager was on vacation at the time of publication. During the preparation time, we had not yet made any connection between the chosen zombie images and the war.
Always start with the goals and the target groups and consider how a post will generate added value for the relevant target group. The choice of channel should be secondary. A solid social media strategy can help set the right goals and a plan for how to achieve them. It is also important to consider your own resources. If these are limited, it is better to limit oneself to individual channels instead of being present on all social networks, even though one does not have the capacity to regularly provide content on them.
This text has been translated from German.
The ETH Library on the internet:
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We were talking to:
Lea Bollhalder has been working at the ETH Library since July 2018 and is responsible for the social media channels. She studied Human Biology at the University of Zurich and has an additional Master’s degree in Marketing, Service and Communication Management from the University of St. Gallen. She can also be found on LinkedIn.
Portrait: Lea Bollhalder©
Featured Image, ETH outside view: ETH Zürich© / Gian Marco Castelberg
The post Social Media in Libraries: Best Practice of the ETH Library in Zurich first appeared on ZBW MediaTalk.
In preparation for a presentation, Curtis Kendrick tried ChatGPT to see what it (they?) had to say. The results at first seemed credible, but where ChatGPT failed miserably was in the non-existent citations it provided.
The post Guest Post — The Efficacy of ChatGPT: Is it Time for the Librarians to Go Home? appeared first on The Scholarly Kitchen.
Guest article by Alena Behrens
From 25 to 28 October 2022, I set out to get to know the Dutch library system as part of a study trip organised by Bibliothek & Information International. Together with 19 other employees from libraries all over Germany, I explored nine cities and their libraries. The stops on our trip were
Stations of the study trip through the Netherlands on 25.10. – 28.10.2022, map by gisgeography.com
This report summarises some of the many special features and experiences of the trip.
This quote by the painter Willem De Kooning is the motto of the Ministerie van Verbeelding, the Ministry of Imagination. This is not an official ministry, but a collective of architects, designers and librarians. They are the brains behind many of the impressive new library concepts and buildings, some of which we were able to visit on this journey. Rob Bruijnzeels is part of this collective. He accompanied us for a while to give us an insight into the work and structure of the Dutch library world.
To remain relevant and interesting, libraries must adapt to changes in society. In the Netherlands, for example, it is taken for granted that they offer consultation hours for advice on e-government. The self-image as a Third Place is also already omnipresent there. Public libraries are perceived as the living rooms of cities and are used accordingly.
A different organisational form and an efficient design of the work processes make this possible, as Rob Bruijnzeels explains to us further. In the Netherlands, public libraries are private initiatives and foundations. Although they also receive money from the municipality, they are not as dependent on it as in Germany. This gives them greater freedom. In addition, libraries of several municipalities often join together in a large library organisation that manages the organisation and central tasks (media purchasing and processing, management, staff organisation).
The Dutch have a long tradition as merchants. This mentality is also reflected in the country today. If something can be organised more efficiently and better, it is done that way. Departments for cataloguing and book processing no longer exist in the individual libraries. These tasks are taken over by a service provider. Because many libraries participate in this, it is cheaper than running individual departments everywhere. The staff can thus be used more efficiently in the programme work.
Jan van Bergen en Henegouwen from the library De Korenbeurs in Schiedam introduced this principle to us. But it can also be found in other public libraries in the Netherlands. What is meant by this is that the library’s visitors participate in its development.
This is possible, on the one hand, through numerous volunteers. The library in Schiedam works with about 300 of them. A number that surprised all participants of the study journey. No one could have imagined this for Germany and our institutions. However, volunteer work has a long tradition in the Netherlands and is an important part of society. For many, it is a matter of course to get involved in their free time. That is why libraries with few staff and short opening hours, for example, can still offer many events. Our guided tours on the trip were also taken over by volunteers most of the time, only rarely did we speak to permanent library staff.
In this context, the term “community library” came up again and again. Everyone can get involved on a voluntary basis. Events are often organised at request of visitors. This way, the librarians know that there is a real need for a topic and what their target groups are interested in.
This system is complemented by a wide range of self-service offers. Visitors can borrow and return media themselves at the stations provided for this purpose. “Everyone becomes a librarian,” explains Rob Bruijnzeels. Consequently, there are hardly any classic lending or service counters left in Dutch libraries; instead, there are distributed information points. The open design lowers the inhibition threshold to ask for advice. The offers should be designed as low-threshold as possible in order to be an open meeting place for all residents of the community. The visitors are given a lot of personal responsibility, which creates a trusting relationship in the library and with its services.
The unusual and innovative architecture of some of the institutions visited should not go unmentioned. The libraries in the towns of Vught and Schiedam stand out in particular. When I entered the buildings, I didn’t have the feeling that I was entering a library.
In Vught the library was built into an old church. This creates a special sense of space. With workstations in the look of confessionals, the two places are fluidly connected. In addition, the library merges seamlessly into a museum and a Third World shop. The combination of different offers has been very successful here.
In Schiedam I had the impression of entering a greenhouse. The covered inner courtyard has been landscaped with many plants to create a cosy garden where visitors enjoy spending time. The quote from the Roman orator Cicero “If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need” has been completely realised here.
But there are also impressive libraries in Gouda and Tilburg that naturally echo the history of the buildings. In Gouda, the current library building was initially a chocolate factory. The building was converted into a library by adding false ceilings and walls. On the floor, there are drawings of the chocolate-making machines that used to be there. In this way, you also learn something about the processes of the old factory.
LocHal Tilburg, on the other hand, used to be a workshop for locomotives, as the name suggests. You can still see this today in the impressive size of the hall. But the crane for lifting the locomotives under the hall ceiling and a history corner also bear witness to this. Here, old pictures of the workshop are on display and former employees talk about their work.
In all the innovative power that lies within the libraries, there are always references back to the history of the buildings. This connection contributes to the charm of the libraries and provides an insight into the past of the city.
This journey exceeded all my expectations and showed once again that it is always worthwhile to look beyond one’s own nose. Libraries in the Netherlands are rightly regarded by us as innovative and forward-looking. I can only recommend taking part in exchange programmes and study trips when the opportunity arises.
Together with 19 other employees from libraries all over Germany, I explored nine cities and their libraries
Everyone benefits from exchanging ideas, learning from each other and being inspired.
The study trip (German) was organised by BI-International (BII). BII is a permanent commission of the Library and Information in Germany – Federal Union of German Library Associations (BID), which promotes international professional exchange in the library sector. Together with the Goethe Institute, BII also supported the trip financially. Marc de Lange from ekz benelux was our tour guide. I would like to take this opportunity to say thanks for the partial invitation. My personal opinion is not influenced by this.
This text has been translated from German.
This might also interest you:
Alena Behrens works as a librarian in the user services department at the ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics. In addition to working at the service desk, her work focuses on the areas of user experience, library as a place of learning and information mediation. She can also be found on Twitter.
Portrait: Alena Behrens©
The post Innovations in Libraries: Impressions of a Study Trip to the Netherlands first appeared on ZBW MediaTalk.