SANLiC 2019 Conference

Pre-conference Presentations

PRESENTATION:

Managing the e-resources life-cycle: spinning wheels or moving forward?

Although e-resources are now entrenched in academic library collections, libraries are still struggling to manage these resources at scale. The common belief that e-resources require less work than print resources was quickly dispelled as staff involved in managing these resources discovered that e-resources do not manage themselves. E-resources require constant tending and, due to their significant cost and importance, it is essential that libraries manage them effectively. This presentation will provide an overview of the e-resources life cycle, related workflows, processes and standards. The e-resources life cycle defined by Techniques for Electronic Resources Management (TERMS) will be used.  The workshop will also refer to new processes for preservation and open access resources for inclusion within the life cycle.

PRESENTATION:

Dressing your library for success: the importance of electronic resource alignment

Resource discovery and access are key drivers for content usage. Aligning electronic resources has become an increasingly complex and labour-intensive activity. Librarians and staff need to be competent in making content discoverable and accessible. This session will cover key concepts in e-resource cataloging, discoverability and using knowledgebases to create access points. Participants will leave understanding how to apply those concepts at their own institutions.

PRESENTATION:

Increasing e-resource usage at your institution

Library marketing is essential. It supports the library in building its brand and image as well as the services and e-resources that are offered. In this digital age, libraries are no longer the only choice for students, academics, researchers and staff to go to for information. Library competitors and technological advances have forced libraries to rethink some of their conventional marketing techniques to promote e-resources. To raise awareness of e-resources and entice patrons to use e-resources, DUT Library staff had to adapt their marketing strategies and use innovative promotional approaches as effectively as possible. My aim is to highlight some of the conventional marketing techniques, which DUT Library repackaged to promote usage of e-resources and to introduce various tools that can be used for marketing e-resources.

PRESENTATION:

A toolkit for the analysis of e-journal collections

Four years ago UCT Libraries went through an extensive review of its journal collection. This exercise was critical due to impending budget cuts. However this exercise was also essential in assessing whether the journal collections were aligned to the current research & learning needs of the university.

In this presentation I will examine the methods, analysis and tools that were used to evaluate the existing e-journal packages. I will identify key elements essential in any toolkit for analysing e-journal packages.

PRESENTATION:

Using Excel like a pro to evaluate collections

Excel’s powerful analytical tools can help you to analyse large amounts of data to discover trends and patterns that will assist you to make decisions. Excel can help you to organise data, turn the data into helpful graphcis and charts and help you to carry out basic and more complex mathematical functions.

PRESENTATION:

Connecting the dots: using the E-Resources Hub as a strategy to support Client Services’ outputs and outcomes

The core function of an e-resources librarian is to manage the stages of the electronic resources life-cycle. Maintaining an awareness of trends and ongoing developments in areas related to the entire life cycle of e-resources is essential. In most libraries, e-resources use up a significant amount of the information budget. In the current financially strained environment, library management has to prove the value-add and benefit of e-resources in a tangible manner in order to justify the budget. E-resources librarians have to use innovative ways to prove the said value. Using practical scenarios this presentation will demonstrate how the E-Resources Hub helps to achieve tangible and quantifiable outcomes in order to support the university’s strategic goals.

PRESENTATION:

Marketing e-resources to researchers

Libraries subscribe to information resources in order to satisfy information needs, support dissemination of knowledge and provide a portal to global content for various subject areas. Librarians are constantly developing library collections in order to support their users at many different levels. Marketing is frequently viewed as a set of strategies that belong to administrators, not librarians. How do we introduce marketing strategies into the library to promote our services and position the library as the knowledge hub of the organisation? The answer lies in remodelling our roles to include a marketing consultant persona. The objective of this presentation is to equip library staff with entry-level skills of social media marketing. Practical solutions are provided on how to implement a marketing strategy. The link between promoting library services and raising the profile of the library will also be shown.

PRESENTATION:

Why work harder? Making ConsortiaManager work for you

ConsortiaManager is a workflow tool and electronic workflow management system specially designed for library consortia. On 1 August 2016 the 2017 SANLiC renewals process was launched on ConsortiaManager. Since then the system has allowed SANLiC staff to keep track of all consortium-negotiated agreements as well as member and vendor details and usage statistics (where available).

Conference Presentations

PRESENTATIONS:

Pathways to Open Access: the University of California Experience

Following the 12th Berlin Open Access Conference in 2015, and the release of the OA2020 Expression of Interest, the University of California Academic Senate and Libraries set forth to develop a new commitment to rapid transformation of the scholarly publishing industry to accomplish universal open access. The first step was to develop a coalition in agreement on objectives, strategies and tactics. This was achieved and announced in several published documents in the first months of 2018, including Pathways to Open Access. The coalition then launched strategic initiatives to deliver on the ambitious goals. In this session Jeffrey will review how the coalition was built, the strategic roadmap they developed, and their first year of actions, including a brief report on their negotiations with publishers to obtain transformative agreements.

University of California multipayer model and workflows for transformative agreements

The University of California Libraries developed a model for transformative (publish-and-read) agreements that meets the needs of North American (and perhaps other) institutions with decentralized research funding and local responsibility for funding scholarly communication. In this session Jeffrey will present the UC model, and discuss the publisher and library workflows needed to support it.

Breaking up with Elsevier

When developing its commitment to obtain a publish-and-read contract, the University of California Libraries knew that they might need to cancel their Big Deal subscription with Elsevier if agreement could not be reached. Thus planning for possible cancellation began more than six months before the end of the previous contract. In this session Jeffrey will discuss the analysis they undertook to prepare for cancellation, and their plans for implementing alternative access. He will also discuss the extensive communications campaign developed to keep our faculty and students informed.

How the University of California prepares for negotiations

The University of California met regularly with Elsevier over an eight month period; and has also been negotiating transformative agreements with other publishers. In this session Jeffrey will discuss pragmatics: how the negotiation team was formed, roles, preparation, and negotiation tactics.

PRESENTATION:

What do students and faculty need in a research database?

Universities sit at the heart of an ecosystem focused on solving global challenges.  Learning, teaching and research are taking more collaborative and multi-disciplinary approaches in helping address these challenges.  Universities therefore are seeking resources and innovative business models to support their patrons with the content, tools and services they need to enable critical thinking, engage with the wider society and build research expertise.   ProQuest is working to ensure our university partners have such resources.

PRESENTATION:

The implications of recent Open Science developments

Open Science (OS), or Open Research has, in recent times, become a topic of intense interest … why? OS comprises broad and embracing strategies and practices with many implications. We explore the merits, advantages and challenges as well as benefits of this innovative, contemporary mode of research. DST recently published the now Cabinet adopted White Paper on Science, Technology and Innovation (March 2019) which advocates the adoption of the OS approach in the pursuit, practice, funding, governance and promotion of research in this country. Open Innovation and Citizen Science require novel approaches. Should South African institutions and researchers embrace this approach in order to achieve national, global or local institutional research compatibility—or not? Are there implications for the professional librarian, the library and indeed for SANLiC?

PRESENTATION:

Accelerating science, technology and innovation through Open Data and Open Science – the African Open Science Platform

Data – both in raw and processed format, and in addition to monographs, research articles and other forms of research output – is an increasingly valuable information resource. This is the result of an environment driven by data, referred to as the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Data has always been at the heart of science, technology and innovation but, while the sharing of information Increased the speed of technological change in the 18th Century, data is the Fourth Industrial Revolution. To illustrate this point, in 2013, the total amount of digital data in circulation was estimated to be 4.4 zettabytes; by 2020 it is expected to grow to 44 zettabytes. To be of benefit to communities, data needs to well curated and FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable and re-usable). The African Open Science Platform conducted a study to find out the status of Open Data and Open Science on the African continent. This paper will share selected findings from the report with the aim of stimulating thought on the role of libraries in ensuring data remains available to those communities that should benefit from it.

PRESENTATION:

Flipping out, over flipping the flip? Understanding the challenges concerning the open access flip, not to flip-out but to flip-in

Open access (OA) promised many advantages to academia. However, the main issue concerning the flip remains the ever-increasing costs of the big deals but more so free access and the right to use quality published research. It is clear that most publishing houses embrace OA, since they have found ways to maintain their stream of income, in spite of the OA flip, concentrating on quantity and not quality. Since gold OA publishing is being embraced by both the academic sector and libraries, it maintains the high quality and standard of research articles, as the same journals that authors were used to in the past, are used, simultaneously managing the stigma of predatory publishing within the OA world. The investments in big deals are therefore the same investments to be made in gold OA access, but through author processing charges. By way of manipulation, this paper will investigate and focus on the challenges faced in making the open access movement a success, in spite of the same pot of money being used, making librarians flip in, not flip-out.

PRESENTATION:

Springer Nature e-books

This presentation will briefly highlight the disciplines covered by the collections, how they can be accessed and how the collections can benefit library users with different scientific backgrounds.

PRESENTATION:

Knowledge empowers innovation: CNKI’s international services

This presentation will introduce China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), the biggest e-resources provider in China. CNKI is the definitive gateway to Chinese scholarly communication. China has made great strides in scientific innovation in recent years, and CNKI is the best resource for accessing this information.

PRESENTATION:

The real costs of OA publishing and the potential of a fully OA paradigm in scholarly communication

The triumph of open-access (OA) publishing in the STM disciplines has been enabled through the availability of research funds, keeping the hurdle of article processing charges (APCs) for authors relatively low. At the same time, STM publishing has suffered from the journal crisis with 400% growth in subscription fees over 20 years. This artificially increased subscription income motivated traditional publishers to calculate their APCs for OA publications by dividing the turnover by the number of articles. They claim €3,000–€5,000 per article.

Concurrently, newly founded pure open-access publishers have developed new business models. Their APCs are much lower. This presentation will show what the real costs of OA publishing are. Furthermore, applying the OA principle has much more to offer than free access to scientific literature. The second dimension is public access to the peer review of a manuscript with commenting options prior to publication, and the third dimension makes all assets of a paper freely accessible (e.g. data sets, software code, videos, or samples) enabling reproduction and reuse of scientific results.

PRESENTATION:

Collaborating for the good – an analysis of the impact of SCOAP3

SCOAP3, the Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access in Particle Physics, was one of the pioneers of a large-scale collaborative model to achieve open access to journal articles. The initiative started in 2014 and has since converted almost 30,000 journal articles at no cost to individual authors. Alex Kohls, the Operations Manager of SCOAP3 will present a review of five years of SCOAP3 and highlight the impact the initiative had on the researcher and library community in particle physics and beyond.

PRESENTATION:

Supporting the transition to open access

This session will provide an overview of Wiley’s involvement in transitional agreements around Europe to date. Ben and Liz will share the successes, challenges and complexities encountered with the different Open Science mandates and individual customer requirements. Finally, they will discuss how Wiley has been engaging with its society partners in this transition process.

PRESENTATIONS:

Transformative agreements in practice

Libraries and consortia around the world are increasingly adopting Transformative Agreements to enable the many benefits of open access for their researchers and society at large. More recently, the Plan S Principles issued by the research funding organizations of cOALition S has contributed to the uptake of Transformative Agreements globally. As an introduction to the panel session on Transformative Agreements, Colleen will provide an overview of the underlying rationale for and mechanisms of transformative agreements.

  • Click here to view the presentation and the panel discussion that followed.
  • Click here to view the presentation slides.

How to deal with no deal: alternative access to journal articles

Whether in the context of an agreement cancellation, stalled negotiations or merely because libraries cannot afford to license everything, it is important to understand just how much subscription journal content is available open access and how institutions and their researchers are tapping into it. In this session, Colleen will highlight some of the many tools that can be used to connect researchers to the content they need.

Building blocks and benchmarks of the OA transition: the ESAC Initiative

The ESAC Initiative defines Transformative Agreements as “contracts negotiated between institutions (libraries, national and regional consortia) and publishers that transform the business model underlying scholarly journal publishing, moving from one based on toll access (subscription) to one in which publishers are remunerated a fair price for their open access publishing services”. However, as these agreements are, by nature, temporary and transitional, there is no standard model, and the agreements negotiated to date are considered to be iterative by both libraries/consortia and publishers. At the same time, all Transformative Agreements have certain characteristics that are consistent, starting with the very principles and objectives and moving down to new workflow requirements. In this session Colleen will introduce the ESAC Initiative and its many features at the service of libraries and consortia who wish to know more about transformative agreements.

PANEL DISCUSSION:

Exploring the largest national transformative agreement for scholarly communication

In January 2019, the publisher John Wiley & Sons and the Projekt DEAL, a representative of nearly 700 academic institutions in Germany, entered a ground breaking transformative agreement which allows researchers at Projekt DEAL institutions the opportunity to publish their articles accepted for publication in Wiley’s subscription journals fully open access and provides all Projekt DEAL institutions with access to read Wiley’s academic journals back to the year 1997. The innovative “Publish and Read” cost model behind the agreement sees former subscription expenditures shifted to support open access publishing, in line with the objectives of the Open Access 2020 Initiative. A panel of experts from the publisher, library and research communities will discuss the significance of the agreement in the evolving landscape of scholarly communication. The panel discussion is facilitated by Colleen Campbell.

PANEL DISCUSSION:

Exploring the largest national transformative agreement for scholarly communication

  • Click here to view the panel discussion and the preceding presentation on “Transformative agreements in practice”.
  • Click here to view the presentation slides.

PRESENTATION:

American Psychological Association – the story behind our mission as an association publisher

This session will feature a look at the APA as an association publisher, and how our mission drives our products. The session will also review key updates to APA’s data base products such as PsycINFO, PsycARTICLES, PsycBOOKS, PsycTHERAPY and PsycTESTS.

PRESENTATION:

e-Resource collection development policy

“Libraries without collection development policies are like businesses without business plans.” So writes Peggy Johnson in her book Fundamentals of collection development and management (2014, 3rd ed). In this presentation we will define what a collection development policy (CDP) is and outline its purpose. We will touch on the various components that comprise a CDP and discuss the need for an e-resource CDP.

PRESENTATION:

Open access citation advantage: an analysis of publication trends of South African researchers

“Advocates for open access (OA) practices proclaim it to have several benefits, for researchers, for science and for society at large. One of the proposed benefits is that the increased visibility provided by gratis access to research leads to OA publications receiving more citations than those publications of which no OA versions are available. We investigated this statement by measuring the percentage of OA journal articles indexed in the Web of Science (WoS) that are cited within five years after publication as well as the percentage that are among the 10% most frequently cited articles and comparing this to the percentage of non-OA journal articles for these two measures. The results were compared between subject areas and to the case for South African authored articles, accompanied by a description of the distribution of OA articles for the years 2001 to 2017.”

PRESENTATION:

Open access citation advantage: an analysis of publication trends of South African researchers

“Advocates for open access (OA) practices proclaim it to have several benefits, for researchers, for science and for society at large. One of the proposed benefits is that the increased visibility provided by gratis access to research leads to OA publications receiving more citations than those publications of which no OA versions are available. We investigated this statement by measuring the percentage of OA journal articles indexed in the Web of Science (WoS) that are cited within five years after publication as well as the percentage that are among the 10% most frequently cited articles and comparing this to the percentage of non-OA journal articles for these two measures. The results were compared between subject areas and to the case for South African authored articles, accompanied by a description of the distribution of OA articles for the years 2001 to 2017.”

PRESENTATIONS:

Tools for Transition: The University of California Pay-It-Forward project and modeling tool

In June 2016, the University of California (led by UC Davis and the California Digital Library) completed an 18-month study to examine the sustainability and feasibility of the article processing charge (APC) business model for large, research-intensive universities in North America. Outcomes from this study help to guide the University of California’s efforts to transform the scholarly publishing system, and the publicly-available Model Calculation Tool (MCT) developed as a part of the project, can extend the analysis to other research institutions. This session will provide an overview of the project and its findings, as well as a brief primer on the MCT and how it can be leveraged for use elsewhere.

Tools for Transition: Data analysis to support negotiations for transformative OA agreements

Transformative OA agreements represent a new way of doing business with publishers. In order to be properly prepared to negotiate for and enter into these agreements, libraries must employ data analysis strategies that go beyond the standard return on investment that is commonly used to measure the value of traditional subscriptions. This session will examine the analysis strategies and tools that were developed at the California Digital Library to support the University of California’s negotiations for transformative OA agreements with Elsevier, Cambridge University Press, and many other publishers.

PRESENTATION:

Brill Evidence Select: a new evidence-based acquisition (EBA) model for e-books

This presentation will provide a brief overview of the new Brill Evidence Select EBA model. Brill Evidence Select gives librarians control over the development of their collections, while enabling them to address the e-book demands of their users.

PRESENTATIONS:

User Experience = User Interface + Role of the Librarian

User experience begins with the user’s initial interface with an academic portal and at each interaction, the user, depending on their skills, knowledge, motivation and persistence, may continue or drop out. It is the function of the library website to facilitate the initial engagement, and then the responsibility of each database or platform to provide an experience that will allow the user to access what they need and discover the full potential of that database. The question is asked: Do users who need an article which an academic has written and published in a journal need to understand this “land between” – the role of Google, Google Scholar, Primo (or another library platform), the filter of the Library website, the databases, the platforms, open-access vs paid for content? This presentation explores the role of the librarian and the user interface in ensuring an excellent user experience and ultimately, the quality of research they produce.

Is there an alternative to “death by PowerPoint?”

Do your PowerPoint presentations send your audience to sleep? Do your Prezi presentations make your audience feel seasick? A range of skills, an ability to read your audience, good knowledge of your topic, combined with a passion for your area of expertise are all elements that will result in a successful presentation. In this presentation, we will focus on how to make your presentations relevant, interesting and memorable.

PRESENTATION:

99 Knowledgebase problems: a KBART crash course

Seldom do aspiring librarians predict that they will be the ones managing the intricacies of electronic resources. Yet, many are charged with complicated and unique tasks, like having to align resources in vendor knowledge bases. This can often be a confusing and frustrating process for librarians. This session will provide a brief overview of the KBART standard, its place in the electronic resource workflows, trends, and how librarians can avoid some common knowledgebase issues.

PRESENTATION:

Influencing the collection: small-scale Patron‐driven acquisitions at the Durban University of Technology (DUT) Library

The challenge for all libraries is creating an effective and appropriate library collection. Historically, collection development in academic libraries was based on assumptions about patron needs. However, the trend over the past couple of years has shifted from a “just-in-case” model to an evidence-based “just-in-time” model. Patron-driven acquisition (PDA) has been gaining much popularity, predominately in the online information environment, involving the patron in the process of building and shaping the library’s collections. The DUT Library has been experimenting with the use of patron-driven acquisitions (PDAs) since 2016 and library patrons—unbeknownst to them—have been playing a part in building the library collections. This paper will discuss the experience of the DUT Library’s foray into small-scale patron-driven acquisition (PDA) and will explore the benefits and challenges in implementing a PDA plan.

PRESENTATION:

An investigation into alternatives to IP authentication for access to e-resources at Stellenbosch University (SU)

Until recently, IP authentication combined with a proxy server for off-campus access has been the most common solution worldwide to authorizing access to licensed e-resources. This is also the case at SU where EZproxy is the proxy server of choice. For various reasons, however, there has been a growing interest in eliminating IP authentication in favour of federated access and single user sign-on. At SU, a working group was tasked to investigate next-generation systems in order to make a recommendation regarding an alternative to EZproxy for accessing online information sources, for implementation, if indicated. The working group compared EZproxy, OpenAthens and RA21 based on the following points: cost, user experience, impact on library staff, privacy and vendors. The results of this investigation are summarized in this presentation.

PRESENTATION:

The library and the NREN (co-presenting)

Just as libraries are evolving, so too are the world’s national research and education networks (NRENs). The last few years have seen great synergies between the library and the NREN. Globally, publishers, libraries and NRENs have been working together under the banner of the RA21 (Resource Access for the 21st century) project to make access to journals and other electronic resources simpler and more intuitive for users. While RA21 is still finalising its recommendations, TENET, as the operator of the South African NREN, has already offered to host an African instance of the infrastructure that would be required to make this a reality. Similarly, through the SAFIRE identity federation we have helped South African university consortia to leverage expensive resources more effectively. No discussion of “the library and the NREN” would be complete without mention of ORCID, and the role NRENs are playing in supporting ORCID in their communities.

PRESENTATION:

The library and the NREN (co-presenting)

Just as libraries are evolving, so too are the world’s national research and education networks (NRENs). The last few years have seen great synergies between the library and the NREN. Globally, publishers, libraries and NRENs have been working together under the banner of the RA21 (Resource Access for the 21st century) project to make access to journals and other electronic resources simpler and more intuitive for users. While RA21 is still finalising its recommendations, TENET, as the operator of the South African NREN, has already offered to host an African instance of the infrastructure that would be required to make this a reality. Similarly, through the SAFIRE identity federation we have helped South African university consortia to leverage expensive resources more effectively. No discussion of “the library and the NREN” would be complete without mention of ORCID, and the role NRENs are playing in supporting ORCID in their communities.

PRESENTATION:

Air Traffic and Navigation Services (ATNS) Roadmap of reviewing and implementing the e-Library Information Services

Air Traffic and Navigation Services SOC Limited (ATNS) provides air traffic, navigation, training and associated services within South Africa and a large part of the southern Indian and Atlantic Ocean, comprising approximately 10% of the world’s airspace. ATNS strives to be the preferred supplier of air traffic management solutions and associated services to the African continent as well as selected international markets. Recently, ATNS reviewed its strategies and, amongst others, decided to expand the library services to meet its organizational objectives of becoming a transformative organisation that invests in its staff; and, providing effective solutions and associated services that meet the needs and expectations of the ATM community. Based on this, the library team reviewed and optimised the library services and resources to meet the organisational vision and objectives. This paper will outline the roadmap that they followed.

PRESENTATION:

What will the world of research look like 10 years from now?

PRESENTATION:

Digital Humanities Archives

Gale Cengage has, for many years, provided the world’s largest digital humanities archives collections, giving researchers online access to rare historical manuscript collections previously restricted to academic reading rooms or microfilm. While some resources include highly edited selections, these archives contain complete collections, allowing researchers to discover opposing views and perspectives, and to conduct interdisciplinary and comparative analyses. Researchers of all levels can explore new questions, discover original connections and enrich lectures, papers and discussions.

PRESENTATION:

The state of open access publications in South Africa

PRESENTATION:

Subscription Agreements and South African Law

Subscription Agreements are the cornerstone of educational institutions’ access to essential electronic resources, yet may pose a number of challenges where one party is located in South Africa and the other is overseas. This talk briefly considers the key provisions of such agreements as well as potential challenges that arise in the South African context, including the use of electronic signatures, jurisdiction, protection of personal information and the use of alternative access methods, such as Sci-Hub.

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