A key pitfall for knowledge-seekers, particularly in the political arena, is informed complacency, or an over-reliance on search engines at the cost of epistemic curiosity. Recent scholarship has documented significant problems with those sources of knowledge that the public relies on the most, including instances of ideological and algorithmic bias in Wikipedia and Google. Such observations raise the question of how deep one would actually need to dig into these platforms’ representations of factual (historical and biographical) knowledge before encountering similar epistemological issues. The present article addresses this question by ‘nitpicking’ knowledge representations of governments and governmental leadership in Wikipedia and Wikidata. Situated within the emerging framework of ‘data studies’, our micro-level analysis of the representations of Belgian prime ministers and their governments thereby reveals problems of classification, naming and linking of biographical items that go well beyond the affordances of the platforms under discussion. This article thus makes an evidence-based contribution to the study of the fundamental challenges that mark the formalisation of knowledge in the humanities.
{"title":"Nitpicking online knowledge representations of governmental leadership. The case of Belgian prime ministers in Wikipedia and Wikidata.","authors":"Tom Willaert, G. Roumans","doi":"10.18352/lq.10362","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18352/lq.10362","url":null,"abstract":"A key pitfall for knowledge-seekers, particularly in the political arena, is informed complacency, or an over-reliance on search engines at the cost of epistemic curiosity. Recent scholarship has documented significant problems with those sources of knowledge that the public relies on the most, including instances of ideological and algorithmic bias in Wikipedia and Google. Such observations raise the question of how deep one would actually need to dig into these platforms’ representations of factual (historical and biographical) knowledge before encountering similar epistemological issues. The present article addresses this question by ‘nitpicking’ knowledge representations of governments and governmental leadership in Wikipedia and Wikidata. Situated within the emerging framework of ‘data studies’, our micro-level analysis of the representations of Belgian prime ministers and their governments thereby reveals problems of classification, naming and linking of biographical items that go well beyond the affordances of the platforms under discussion. This article thus makes an evidence-based contribution to the study of the fundamental challenges that mark the formalisation of knowledge in the humanities.","PeriodicalId":39179,"journal":{"name":"LIBER Quarterly","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83528600","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Evidence-based practice is an approach to professional practice that involves a structured process of collecting, interpreting and applying valid and reliable research and evidence to support decision-making and continuous service improvement in professional practice. This paper reports on emerging initiatives in evidence-based practice at the University of Southern Queensland (USQ) Library, a regional multi-campus university in Australia. It demonstrates how evidence-based practice forms part of our organisational strategy to engage with our community and society. The case study describes a new model of embedding evidence-based practice through a role explicitly dedicated to developing the library’s evidence base. While other libraries may have a person responsible for assessment, performance metrics or data analysis, the Coordinator (Evidence-Based Practice) has a broader mandate – to work with library staff to develop tools, skills and expertise in evidence-based practice. The paper will describe why this role was created and how the Coordinator is working to engage with library staff to understand their business and the evidence needed to support service improvement for the Library. By doing this, USQ Library is building the capacity to demonstrate value to stakeholders, gain a deeper understanding of clients’ needs and experiences, promote robust decision-making and improve service delivery. The paper also outlines an initiative led by the Coordinator (Evidence-Based Practice) to develop a conceptual model of evidence-based practice within academic libraries at the organisational, rather than individual level. Current models of evidence-based library and information practice apply predominantly to individuals. Informed by relevant literature and 16 semi-structured interviews with library professionals from Australian and New Zealand university libraries, three themes emerged to describe how evidence-based practice might be experienced at the organisational level. The lived experience at USQ Library and our research investigations suggest that being evidence-based provides benefits to an academic library’s culture, practice and impact.
{"title":"Applied and conceptual approaches to evidence-based practice in research and academic libraries","authors":"Clare Thorpe, A. Howlett","doi":"10.18352/lq.10320","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18352/lq.10320","url":null,"abstract":"Evidence-based practice is an approach to professional practice that involves a structured process of collecting, interpreting and applying valid and reliable research and evidence to support decision-making and continuous service improvement in professional practice. This paper reports on emerging initiatives in evidence-based practice at the University of Southern Queensland (USQ) Library, a regional multi-campus university in Australia. It demonstrates how evidence-based practice forms part of our organisational strategy to engage with our community and society. The case study describes a new model of embedding evidence-based practice through a role explicitly dedicated to developing the library’s evidence base. While other libraries may have a person responsible for assessment, performance metrics or data analysis, the Coordinator (Evidence-Based Practice) has a broader mandate – to work with library staff to develop tools, skills and expertise in evidence-based practice. The paper will describe why this role was created and how the Coordinator is working to engage with library staff to understand their business and the evidence needed to support service improvement for the Library. By doing this, USQ Library is building the capacity to demonstrate value to stakeholders, gain a deeper understanding of clients’ needs and experiences, promote robust decision-making and improve service delivery. The paper also outlines an initiative led by the Coordinator (Evidence-Based Practice) to develop a conceptual model of evidence-based practice within academic libraries at the organisational, rather than individual level. Current models of evidence-based library and information practice apply predominantly to individuals. Informed by relevant literature and 16 semi-structured interviews with library professionals from Australian and New Zealand university libraries, three themes emerged to describe how evidence-based practice might be experienced at the organisational level. The lived experience at USQ Library and our research investigations suggest that being evidence-based provides benefits to an academic library’s culture, practice and impact.","PeriodicalId":39179,"journal":{"name":"LIBER Quarterly","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-04-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73508392","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Cezary Bolek, Dejan Marolov, Monika Bolek, Jovan Shopovski
This research article is aimed at comparing review reports in which the identity of the reviewers is revealed to the authors of the papers with those where the reviewers decided to remain anonymous. The review reports are gathered as part of the peer review process of the European Scientific Journal (ESJ). This journal maintains a single-blind peer review procedure and optional open review. Reviewers are familiar with the names of the authors but not vice versa. When sending the review reports, the reviewers can opt to reveal their identity to the authors. 343 review reports from members of the ESJ editorial board, gathered within the period of May to July 2019, were analyzed. The data analysis was performed using Python programing language based on NumPy, Pandas, and Scipy packages.Half of the reviewers decided to choose the open option and reveal their names to the authors of the papers. The other half remained anonymous. The results show that female reviewers more often decide to remain anonymous than their male colleagues. However, there is no significant difference in the review reports on the basis of gender or country of institutional affiliation of the reviewers. Revealing identity did not make difference in reviewers’ point appraisal in the review reports. This difference was not significant. However, majority of the reviewers who recommended rejection in their review reports were not willing to reveal their identities. Even more, those reviewers who revealed their identity were more likely to recommend acceptance without revision or minor revision in their review reports.
{"title":"Revealing Reviewers’ Identities as Part of Open Peer Review and Analysis of the Review Reports","authors":"Cezary Bolek, Dejan Marolov, Monika Bolek, Jovan Shopovski","doi":"10.31235/osf.io/9pgm2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/9pgm2","url":null,"abstract":"This research article is aimed at comparing review reports in which the identity of the reviewers is revealed to the authors of the papers with those where the reviewers decided to remain anonymous. The review reports are gathered as part of the peer review process of the European Scientific Journal (ESJ). This journal maintains a single-blind peer review procedure and optional open review. Reviewers are familiar with the names of the authors but not vice versa. When sending the review reports, the reviewers can opt to reveal their identity to the authors. 343 review reports from members of the ESJ editorial board, gathered within the period of May to July 2019, were analyzed. The data analysis was performed using Python programing language based on NumPy, Pandas, and Scipy packages.Half of the reviewers decided to choose the open option and reveal their names to the authors of the papers. The other half remained anonymous. The results show that female reviewers more often decide to remain anonymous than their male colleagues. However, there is no significant difference in the review reports on the basis of gender or country of institutional affiliation of the reviewers. Revealing identity did not make difference in reviewers’ point appraisal in the review reports. This difference was not significant. However, majority of the reviewers who recommended rejection in their review reports were not willing to reveal their identities. Even more, those reviewers who revealed their identity were more likely to recommend acceptance without revision or minor revision in their review reports.","PeriodicalId":39179,"journal":{"name":"LIBER Quarterly","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-04-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79007575","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The Open Library of Humanities was launched almost half a decade ago with funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. In this article, we outline the problems we set out to address and the lessons we learned. Specifically, we note that, as we hypothesized, academic libraries are not necessarily classical economic actors; that implementing consortial funding models requires much marketing labour; that there are substantial governance and administrative overheads in our model; that there are complex tax and VAT considerations for consortial arrangements; and that diverse revenue sources remain critical to our success.
{"title":"Lessons From the Open Library of Humanities","authors":"M. Eve, Paula Clemente Vega, C. Edwards","doi":"10.18352/lq.10327","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18352/lq.10327","url":null,"abstract":"The Open Library of Humanities was launched almost half a decade ago with funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. In this article, we outline the problems we set out to address and the lessons we learned. Specifically, we note that, as we hypothesized, academic libraries are not necessarily classical economic actors; that implementing consortial funding models requires much marketing labour; that there are substantial governance and administrative overheads in our model; that there are complex tax and VAT considerations for consortial arrangements; and that diverse revenue sources remain critical to our success.","PeriodicalId":39179,"journal":{"name":"LIBER Quarterly","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-03-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75605490","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Being a concept quite familiar in the domain of information retrieval, data search in a web based environment has recently gained attention. With researchers and academic institutions increasingly publishing their data on the public web, traditional research workflows with respect to data search are subject to empirical analysis, user studies, re-engineering and service development. We investigate these workflows more into detail and introduce three patterns of web-based data search intended to serve both as a general reference and as a starting point for discipline specific adoptions. We give some real-world examples in terms of existing web applications and GUI components, thereby suggesting a combination of both generic and community specific approaches towards solutions for data search. We further analyze these patterns by means of empirical evidences we found in some research communities, before giving a summary and outlook on future work.
{"title":"Patterns for searching data on the web across different research communities","authors":"Timo Borst, Fidan Limani","doi":"10.18352/lq.10317","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18352/lq.10317","url":null,"abstract":"Being a concept quite familiar in the domain of information retrieval, data search in a web based environment has recently gained attention. With researchers and academic institutions increasingly publishing their data on the public web, traditional research workflows with respect to data search are subject to empirical analysis, user studies, re-engineering and service development. We investigate these workflows more into detail and introduce three patterns of web-based data search intended to serve both as a general reference and as a starting point for discipline specific adoptions. We give some real-world examples in terms of existing web applications and GUI components, thereby suggesting a combination of both generic and community specific approaches towards solutions for data search. We further analyze these patterns by means of empirical evidences we found in some research communities, before giving a summary and outlook on future work.","PeriodicalId":39179,"journal":{"name":"LIBER Quarterly","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-02-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79505415","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper gives an account of ETH Library’s combined strategy of implementing an open data policy and using crowdsourcing to improve metadata. Both activities go hand in hand and promote each other. ETH Library’s Image Archive was the first unit to provide content for free download in high resolution. This paved the way for a very successful crowdsourcing campaign during which citizen scientists located places, dated photographs, and identified people and artefacts. This positive experience led to further crowdsourcing activities in other ETH Library units. Important conditions for success apart from the open data policy were conscious community management by social media channels and promoting competition within a gamification approach.
{"title":"Open data for the crowd: an account of citizen science at ETH Library","authors":"S. Wiederkehr","doi":"10.18352/lq.10294","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18352/lq.10294","url":null,"abstract":"This paper gives an account of ETH Library’s combined strategy of implementing an open data policy and using crowdsourcing to improve metadata. Both activities go hand in hand and promote each other. ETH Library’s Image Archive was the first unit to provide content for free download in high resolution. This paved the way for a very successful crowdsourcing campaign during which citizen scientists located places, dated photographs, and identified people and artefacts. This positive experience led to further crowdsourcing activities in other ETH Library units. Important conditions for success apart from the open data policy were conscious community management by social media channels and promoting competition within a gamification approach.","PeriodicalId":39179,"journal":{"name":"LIBER Quarterly","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79854258","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper presents new services developed by the Lille University Library for European and National research project coordinators. This is a specific audience that libraries are not used to target, with a widely recognised institutional status and academic background. Supporting them in their coordination activities is an opportunity to gain a new role for libraries, which starts from the design of research at the submission stage and lasts several years after, during the project lifetime. These services help coordinators to meet their funders’ expectations on open access and research data management. It is also a way to develop new collaborations with research units and some university services, such as the Grant Office. The Lille University Library has already supported the writing of forty grant proposals since 2017, including about thirty since early 2019. The Library currently follows twelve projects on open access, research data management or both. This second figure is likely to increase in 2020 due to the number of projects supported at submission stage since the beginning of 2019. The paper describes our set of services and the lessons we learned from our approach.
{"title":"The embedded research librarian: a project partner","authors":"Romain Féret, Marie Cros","doi":"10.18352/lq.10304","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18352/lq.10304","url":null,"abstract":"This paper presents new services developed by the Lille University Library for European and National research project coordinators. This is a specific audience that libraries are not used to target, with a widely recognised institutional status and academic background. Supporting them in their coordination activities is an opportunity to gain a new role for libraries, which starts from the design of research at the submission stage and lasts several years after, during the project lifetime. These services help coordinators to meet their funders’ expectations on open access and research data management. It is also a way to develop new collaborations with research units and some university services, such as the Grant Office. The Lille University Library has already supported the writing of forty grant proposals since 2017, including about thirty since early 2019. The Library currently follows twelve projects on open access, research data management or both. This second figure is likely to increase in 2020 due to the number of projects supported at submission stage since the beginning of 2019. The paper describes our set of services and the lessons we learned from our approach.","PeriodicalId":39179,"journal":{"name":"LIBER Quarterly","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-12-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75066196","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article discusses how students can be more integrated in developing library instruction and what advantages that can provide for librarians planning their teaching. The students seem to have a different starting point as to how important the librarians’ knowledge of the subject at hand is and whether or not library instruction should be an integrated part of the course.
{"title":"Embedded students? Can libraries benefit from students having work placements in the library in planning library instruction?","authors":"H. Johannessen","doi":"10.18352/lq.10283","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18352/lq.10283","url":null,"abstract":"This article discusses how students can be more integrated in developing library instruction and what advantages that can provide for librarians planning their teaching. The students seem to have a different starting point as to how important the librarians’ knowledge of the subject at hand is and whether or not library instruction should be an integrated part of the course.","PeriodicalId":39179,"journal":{"name":"LIBER Quarterly","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-11-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74037896","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Helene Brinken, I. Kuchma, Vasso Kalaitzi, Joy Davidson, Nancy Pontika, M. Cancellieri, Antonia Correia, J. Carvalho, R. Melero, Damjana Kastelic, Filomena Borba, Katerina Lenaki, Ulf Toelch, K. Zourou, Petr Knoth, Birgit Schmidt, Elóy Rodrigues
To foster responsible research and innovation, research communities, institutions, and funders are shifting their practices and requirements towards Open Science. Open Science skills are becoming increasingly essential for researchers. Indeed general awareness of Open Science has grown among EU researchers, but the practical adoption can be further improved. Recognizing a gap between the needed and the provided training offer, the FOSTER project offers practical guidance and training to help researchers learn how to open up their research within a particular domain or research environment. Aiming for a sustainable approach, FOSTER focused on strengthening the Open Science training capacity by establishing and supporting a community of trainers. The creation of an Open Science training handbook was a first step towards bringing together trainers to share their experiences and to create an open and living knowledge resource. A subsequent series of train-the-trainer bootcamps helped trainers to find inspiration, improve their skills and to intensify exchange within a peer group. Four trainers, who attended one of the bootcamps, contributed a case study on their experiences and how they rolled out Open Science training within their own institutions. On its platform the project provides a range of online courses and resources to learn about key Open Science topics. FOSTER awards users gamification badges when completing courses in order to provide incentives and rewards, and to spur them on to even greater achievements in learning. The paper at hand describes FOSTER Plus’ training strategies, shares the lessons learnt and provides guidance on how to reuse the project’s materials and training approaches.
{"title":"A Case Report: Building communities with training and resources for Open\u0000 Science trainers","authors":"Helene Brinken, I. Kuchma, Vasso Kalaitzi, Joy Davidson, Nancy Pontika, M. Cancellieri, Antonia Correia, J. Carvalho, R. Melero, Damjana Kastelic, Filomena Borba, Katerina Lenaki, Ulf Toelch, K. Zourou, Petr Knoth, Birgit Schmidt, Elóy Rodrigues","doi":"10.18352/lq.10303","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18352/lq.10303","url":null,"abstract":"To foster responsible research and innovation, research communities, institutions, and funders are shifting their practices and requirements towards Open Science. Open Science skills are becoming increasingly essential for researchers. Indeed general awareness of Open Science has grown among EU researchers, but the practical adoption can be further improved. Recognizing a gap between the needed and the provided training offer, the FOSTER project offers practical guidance and training to help researchers learn how to open up their research within a particular domain or research environment. Aiming for a sustainable approach, FOSTER focused on strengthening the Open Science training capacity by establishing and supporting a community of trainers. The creation of an Open Science training handbook was a first step towards bringing together trainers to share their experiences and to create an open and living knowledge resource. A subsequent series of train-the-trainer bootcamps helped trainers to find inspiration, improve their skills and to intensify exchange within a peer group. Four trainers, who attended one of the bootcamps, contributed a case study on their experiences and how they rolled out Open Science training within their own institutions. On its platform the project provides a range of online courses and resources to learn about key Open Science topics. FOSTER awards users gamification badges when completing courses in order to provide incentives and rewards, and to spur them on to even greater achievements in learning. The paper at hand describes FOSTER Plus’ training strategies, shares the lessons learnt and provides guidance on how to reuse the project’s materials and training approaches.","PeriodicalId":39179,"journal":{"name":"LIBER Quarterly","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-10-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72964107","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Katie S Wilson, C. Neylon, Chloe Brookes-Kenworthy, Richard Hosking, C. Huang, Lucy Montgomery, Alkim Ozaygen
In the context of a growing international focus on open access publishing options and mandates, this paper explores the extent to which the ideals of ‘openness’ are also being applied to physical knowledge resources and research spaces. This study, which forms part of the larger Curtin Open Knowledge Initiative project, investigates the relationship between academic library access policies and institutional positions on open access or open science publishing. Analysis of library access policies and related documents from twenty academic institutions in Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, Africa and the United Kingdom shows that physical access to libraries for members of the public who are not affiliated with a university is often the most restricted category of access. Many libraries impose financial and sometimes security barriers on entry to buildings, limiting access to collections in print and other non-digital formats. The limits placed on physical access to libraries contrast strongly with the central role that these institutions play in facilitating open access in digital form for research outputs through institutional repositories and open access publishing policies. We compared library access policies and practices with open access publishing and research sharing policies for the same institutions and found limited correlation between both sets of policies. Comparing the two assessments using Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient confirmed open access policies have a direct association with the narrow aspects of public access provided through online availability of formal publications, but are not necessarily associated (in the universities in this study) with delivering on a broader commitment to public access to knowledge. The results suggest that while institutional mission statements and academic library policies may refer to sharing of knowledge and research and community collaboration, multiple layers of library user categories, levels of privilege and fees charged can inhibit the realisation of these goals. As open access publishing options and mandates expand, physical entry to academic libraries and access to print and electronic resources has contracted. This varies within and across countries, but it conflicts with global library and information commitments to open access to knowledge.
{"title":"‘Is the library open?’: Correlating unaffiliated access to academic\u0000 libraries with open access support","authors":"Katie S Wilson, C. Neylon, Chloe Brookes-Kenworthy, Richard Hosking, C. Huang, Lucy Montgomery, Alkim Ozaygen","doi":"10.18352/lq.10298","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18352/lq.10298","url":null,"abstract":"In the context of a growing international focus on open access publishing options and mandates, this paper explores the extent to which the ideals of ‘openness’ are also being applied to physical knowledge resources and research spaces. This study, which forms part of the larger Curtin Open Knowledge Initiative project, investigates the relationship between academic library access policies and institutional positions on open access or open science publishing. Analysis of library access policies and related documents from twenty academic institutions in Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, Africa and the United Kingdom shows that physical access to libraries for members of the public who are not affiliated with a university is often the most restricted category of access. Many libraries impose financial and sometimes security barriers on entry to buildings, limiting access to collections in print and other non-digital formats. The limits placed on physical access to libraries contrast strongly with the central role that these institutions play in facilitating open access in digital form for research outputs through institutional repositories and open access publishing policies. We compared library access policies and practices with open access publishing and research sharing policies for the same institutions and found limited correlation between both sets of policies. Comparing the two assessments using Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient confirmed open access policies have a direct association with the narrow aspects of public access provided through online availability of formal publications, but are not necessarily associated (in the universities in this study) with delivering on a broader commitment to public access to knowledge. The results suggest that while institutional mission statements and academic library policies may refer to sharing of knowledge and research and community collaboration, multiple layers of library user categories, levels of privilege and fees charged can inhibit the realisation of these goals. As open access publishing options and mandates expand, physical entry to academic libraries and access to print and electronic resources has contracted. This varies within and across countries, but it conflicts with global library and information commitments to open access to knowledge.","PeriodicalId":39179,"journal":{"name":"LIBER Quarterly","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-10-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85340258","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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